
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



• 



Chap. Copyright No 

Shelf_X_ll^ 

^^VB 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The Lake Country. 



AN ASMNAL OF OLDEN DAYS IN 
CENTRAL NEW YORK. 



The Land of Gold, 



BY 

JOHN CORBETT. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y. 

DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE PRINT, 



■C7t 






COPYRIGHTED, 

JOHN CORBETT. 
1898. 







THE TOPICS. 

TITLE. PAGE. 

The Lakes 8 

The Iroquois ii 

The Expedition 13 

The Invasion 16 

The Engagement 19 

The Devastation 21 

The Encampments 24 

The Barbarities 27 

The Retreat 30 

The Chronicle ^^ 

The Traditions ^6 

The Commanders 39 

The Sachems. 42 

The Women 44 

The Treaties 47 

The Pre-emption '. 50 

The Titles 53 

The Estates 56 

The Counties 58 

The Officials 62 

The Pioneers 65 

The Settlement 68 

The Development 71 

The Industries 7;^ 

The Antiquities 76 

The Landmarks 79 

The Travelers 82 

The Militia 85 



THE TOPICS. 

TITLE. PAGE 

The Schools 88 

The Institutions 91 

The Religion 93 

The Folk-lore 96 

The Treasure 99 

The Salt-springs 102 

The Rocks 105 

The Streams 108 

The Waterways no 

The Steamboats 113 

The Ferries 116 

The Canals 119 

The Land-routes 122 

The Stage-lines 125 

The Railways 128 

The Press 130 

The Sloops 133 

The Fruits 136 

THE SKETCHES. 

The Ship 144 

The Camp 147 

The Claim 149 

The Gold 151 

The Scene 154 

The Shore 156 

The Race 159 



MfiiPOPrA/KRC» 




l-CHEMUNG. 

II-SENECA. 

Ill— CAYUGA. 

IV-GENESEE. 

V-HONEOYE. 

V!— HEMLOCK. 

VII— CONESUS. 

VIII— KEUKA. 

IX-CANANDAIGUA. 

X— NEWTOV^N CREEK. 

XI-CAYUTA CREEK. 

XII— SUSQUEHANNA. 

A— SULLIVAN'S BAT. 

B— DEARBORN'S RT. 

C-BUTLER'S ROUTE. 

1— TIOGA CAMP. 

2— NEWTOWN RT. 

3— KANAWAHOLLA. 

4-SHEOQUAGA. 

5-PEACH ORCHARD. 

6— CONDAWHAW. 

7— KENDAIA. 8— KANADASEAGA. 9.— GOTHSEUNQUEAN. 

10— KANANDAIGUA. II-HANNEYAYE. 12— KANAGHSAWS. 

13— CHENANDANAH. 14-SKOIYASE. 15— CHONODOTE. 

16-SWAHYAWANA. 17— COREORGONEL. 

ARROWS ON PRE-EMPTION LINE. 



THE ANNAL 



The Annal of Olden Days is the out- 
growth of several years of endeavor as 
a newspaper writer in the local field of 
the Lake Country, and the research for 
the facts presented was pursued with 
great care and diligent application. The 
work portrays the period of the pioneers 
of Central New York, and is designed to 
be a correct chronicle of the time. To 
one whose eighty years have been passed 
amid the scenes depicted, and another 
whose life has been about the lakes, 
these sketches are inscribed — Otis R. 
Corbett and Adelia B. Corbett, the 
parents of The Author, 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 



AN ANNAL OF OLDEN DAYS IN 
CENTRAL NEW YORK. 



The Lake Country is a region famed 
in song and story, of legendary lore that 
vests with poetic charm the placid lakes 
and tumbling streams, which render 
every part a pleasure ground. This pic- 
turesque land was the seat of empire of 
the Iroquois, from a time so remote that 
even tradition is silent as to the Hghting 
of the first council-fire. Their trails 
along the shores have been obliterated; 
their hunting-grounds of hill and vale 
deforested; their remains rest in un- 



8 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

known graves by lake and stream. It 
embraces the waters of Central New 
York from the Onondaga to the Gen- 
esee. From the eastward to westward, 
in valleys extending north and south, its 
lakes range as follows: Otisco, Skan- 
eateles, Owasco, Cayuga, Seneca, Keuka, 
Canandaigua, Honeoye, Canadice, Hem- 
lock and Conesus. 

THE LAKES. 

The Lakes whose charms of wave and 
shore make beautiful the scenery of that 
section of New York State, southward 
of Ontario's waters, vary in length, 
breadth and depth, but occupy beds of 
similar trend and configuration, and 
doubtless great depressions of the earth, 
modified from original conformation by 
glacial action. Seneca and Cayuga hold 
superiority as to extent, and are also 
distinguished as occupying the central 
location of the Lake Country. Next in 
the order of size is Lake Keuka; then 
Canandaigua and Skaneateles, Owasco, 
Conesus, Hemlock, Honeoye, Canadice 
and Otisco. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. Q 

Seneca Lake extends in a rock-riven 
valley, farther in the southward hills 
than adjoining lakes, and the fame of its 
glens and cascades is world-wide. From 
its surface, which is 447 feet above tide, 
the uplands rise from 500 to 1,000 feet, 
but arable to their summits. The lake 
is nearly forty miles in length, with an 
average breadth of less than two miles. 
The greatest width is 17,060 feet, ofif the 
outlet of Lake Keuka, and the deepest 
point of sounding, 612 feet, is three miles 
south of Lodi Landing. But three times 
in the memory of the present race of 
occupancy of its shores, have its waters 
been ice-fettered; they having at all 
other seasons billowed free beneath the 
wintry airs. 

Cayuga Lake is separated from Sen- 
eca by a ridge, rising in its highest point 
to 1,257 ^^^t above tide, and over the 
rock formations about its head, beautiful 
waterfalls mark the entrances to pic- 
turesque gorges. The length of the lake 
is about forty miles, and its elevation 
above tide is 387 feet. Its greatest width, 
18,000 feet, is ofif Aurora, and its pro- 



lO THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

foundest depth is 435 feet, at Kidder's 
Ferry, not in mid-stream, but near the 
west shore. The geological characteris- 
tics of the beds of Cayuga and Seneca 
are about the same; cliffs of shale and 
sandstone rising from head-waters to 
fertile slopes above, though the former 
has not an open valley to the southward, 
which is a feature of the latter. 

Keuka Lake, which for a time suf- 
fered the loss of its aboriginal appella- 
tion in the commonplace designation of 
Crooked Lake, is nearly twenty miles in 
length, 718 feet above tide, and upwards 
of 200 feet deep. The two lakes, Can- 
andaigua and Skaneateles, resemble each 
other in contour. Their lengths are 
about sixteen miles, but w^hile the former 
is 668 feet above tide, the elevation of 
the latter is 860 feet. Owasco and 
Conesus Lakes are each some ten miles 
long; Hemlock and Honeoye Lakes are 
six miles in length, and Canadice and 
Otisco about four miles long. About all 
these waters, camp-fires glow in sum- 
mertide, on shady points where wigwam- 
smoke arose in olden days. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. II 

THE IROQUOIS. 

The Lake Country of Central New 
York perpetuates in the appellations of 
its romantic waters, the memories of a 
race whose council-fires have died for- 
ever from the shores. The Iroquois or 
Hodenosaunee, as they styled them- 
selves, had domain from the Hudson to 
beyond the Genesee. The Mohaw^ks 
held the eastern and the Senecas the 
western door of the "Long House," 
while to the Onondagas was entrusted 
the keeping of the central fire. Tradition 
names the Mohawks, the Onondagas 
and the Senecas as the elder nations, the 
Oneidas having diverged from the Onon- 
dagas and the Cayugas from the 
Senecas. 

A chronicle of 1666, states that the 
Iroquois Nation formerly consisted of 
nine tribes, which occupied as many vil- 
lages, finally collected together in order 
to sustain war more easily. The first 
tribe was that of the Tortoise, so-called 
from the belief that when the Master of 
Life made the earth he placed it on the 
tortoise. The second tribe was 



12 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

that of the Wolf, brother to the 
Tortoise, and on the question of war 
they dehberated together. The third 
tribe was that of the Bear; the fourth 
that of the Beaver, brother to the Bear; 
the fifth that of the Deer, the sixth that 
of the Potato, the seventh that of the 
Great Plover, the eighth that of the Lit- 
tle Plover, the ninth that of the Eagle. 
From this classification arose the totems 
of the tribes. 

The League of the Iroquois was a con- 
federation of Five Nations when first 
known to white men. The Onondagas 
were called "The Fathers of the Con- 
federacy," from the belief that the idea 
of union originated with them. The 
Mohawks on consultation first assented, 
and became "The Eldest Brothers"; the 
Cayugas, "The Youngest Brothers"; 
the Oneidas, "The Heads of the Con- 
federacy," and the Senecas, who were 
accorded two delegates to one each 
for the other tribes because of the greater 
number of warriors, were known as 
"The Watchmen." In 1722, the Tusca- 
roras, driven from the forest glades of 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 1 3 

the South, were admitted to the confed- 
eration, and thenceforth its annals were 
of the Six Nations. 

The Senecas constituted by far the 
most powerful member of the Confeder- 
acy, and occupied not only the country 
along the Seneca Lake but westward to 
the Genesee and thence to the tributaries 
of the Ohio, while the other nations were 
mainly located about the waters that 
bear their names, the Tuscaroras having 
possessions near the Oneidas. An official 
report regarding the Indian tribes, made 
near the close of 1763, estimated the 
strength of the Senecas at 1,050 men, 
while all the remaining warriors of the 
confederation were enumerated at 900, 
apportioned among the several nations 
as follows: The Oneidas, 250; the Cay- 
ugas, 200; the Mohawks, 160; the Onon- 
dagas, 150; the Tuscaroras, 140. 

THE EXPEDITION. 

The Six Nations at the time of the 
Revolution were greatly advanced from 
the state of savagery, characteristic of 
the tribes of aborigines holding sway to 



14 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

the westward. Their territory had been 
left intact by the French and Enghsh 
during the wars ensuing in the struggle 
for supremacy on this continent, and 
throughout its extent were many flour- 
ishing villages in which log-cabins had 
taken the place of primitive wig^vams, 
and where thrived upon the surrounding 
intervales, plantations of corn and beans 
and orchards of peach and apple trees. 

The Great Council of the Iroquois had 
assured the Colonial authorities that 
neutrality would be observed in the con- 
test then impending, but English influ- 
ence becoming paramount in tribal 
afrairs when the war began, rendered 
this pledge of no avail. The Confedera- 
tion, however, mindful of preserving its 
national renown, prohibited the enemies 
of American Independence from estab- 
lishing permanent fortifications within 
its borders, but extended aid to them by 
raising army food-supplies and inciting 
warrior bands to depredations on war- 
path or in ambuscade. The Indians thus 
allied v/ith the British numbered some 
1,200, of which a third at least were of 
the Seneca Natioix 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 1 5 

The Colonies as late as March, 1778, 
endeavored to secure the good will of 
the Iroquois, but at the council called 
for the purpose the Cayugas were hardly 
represented and the Senecas not at all. 
Before the year was over, occurred the 
massacres of Wyoming and Cherry Val- 
ley, and the fact became impressed upon 
Congress that the savage foe must be 
subdued. In February, 1779, General 
Washington was authorized to take 
effective measures to that end, and in 
accordance with this determination a 
Military Expedition was planned against 
the Six Nations. The complete devasta- 
tion of their land was contemplated, and 
the command of the avenging forces was 
entrusted to Major General John Sul- 
livan. 

The campaign was regarded by . the 
Commander-in-Chief as of the greatest 
importance in the contest for freedom, 
and in his instructions concerning it he 
insisted upon two points to be observed, 
as follows: "The one is the necessity of 
pushing the Indians to the greatest prac- 
ticable distance from their own settle- 



l6 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

ments and our frontiers ; to the throwing 
them wholly on the British enemy. The 
other is the making the destruction of 
their settlements so final and complete 
as to put it out of their power to derive 
the smallest succor from them in case 
they should attempt to return this sea- 
son." 

THE INVASION. 

The Invasion of the country of the Six 
Nations by General Sullivan occurred in 
the autumn of 1779. The main army 
reached Tioga, as the point at the junc- 
tion of the Chemung and the Susque- 
hanna was called, on August nth, and 
there established Fort Sullivan as a base 
of operations. The troops had marched 
from Easton on the Delaware to Wyom- 
ing on the Susquehanna, and thence up 
the river to the place of vantage, where 
they were joined on x\ugust 22nd, by the 
brigade in command of General James 
Clinton, which came down the Susque- 
hanna from Otsego Lake. 

The line of march into a wilderness 
swarming with savage warriors who 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. \J 

alone knew its trails, was formed on 
August 26th. The Iroquois were met 
and routed at the Battle of Newtown on 
the 29th. The dreaded defiles of Cath- 
arine Creek were passed without moles- 
tation from the enemy, and September 
1st found the army at Catharine's Town. 
Six days were required to reach and 
destroy the villages, the orchards and the 
cornfields along the eastern slope of Sen- 
eca Lake. From Kanadaseaga, which 
was entered the 7th, the route extended 
by the waters of Canandaigua, Honeoye, 
Hemlock and Conesus Lakes to the 
Genesee River. This was crossed on 
September 14th, and the army rested at 
the westward limit of its course. 

The return march was begun on Sep- 
tember 15th, and by the 19th the army 
had retraced the trail to Kanadaseaga. 
On the 20th, a detachment of 600 men 
under Colonel William Butler was sent 
to destroy the towns on the east side of 
Cayuga Lake, and Colonel Peter Ganse- 
voort and 100 men were detached to 
Albany. The next day, a detachment of 
200 men led by Colonel Henry Dear- 



I» THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

born, left to devastate the west side of 
the Cayuga. The main army then re- 
turned over its out-going course, to the 
Chemung, arriving the 24th, where it 
awaited the detachments of Colonels 
Dearborn and Butler. The former joined 
on the 26th and the latter on the 28th, 
and September 30th the army again en- 
camped at Tioga. 

The country of the Cayugas like that 
of the Senecas was found to be deserted. 
Colonel Dearborn in his march up the 
west side of Cayuga Lake entered the 
village of Coreorgonel near its head, on 
September 24th. This was burned, and 
turning westward he trailed over the 
hills to Catharine's Town, arriving two 
days after General Sullivan's troops had 
passed through on their return south- 
ward. Colonel Butler in his course up 
the east side of the Cayuga, reached 
Coreorgonel on the 25th, the day after 
its destruction by Colonel Dearborn. He 
then proceeded southwesterly to the 
track of the main army, one man dying 
on the route. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. I9 

THE ENGAGEMENT. 

The Military force under command of 
General Sullivan has been variously esti- 
mated as to numbers, and was probably 
not far from 3,500 men. The First 
Brigade, led by General William Max- 
well, was composed of New Jersey 
troops; the Second Brigade, General 
Enoch Poor, of New Hampshire and 
Massachusetts troops; the Third Brig- 
ade, General Edward Hand, of Pennsyl- 
vania troops, and the Fourth Brigade, 
General James Clinton, of New York 
troops. An artillery regiment was in 
command of Colonel Thomas Proctor, 
and an artillery detachment was led by 
Captain Isaiah Wool. 

The Battle of Newtown was the only 
general engagement of the campaign. It 
was fought on Sunday, August 29th, 
on the left bank of the Chemung six miles 
below the site of Elmira, at a place well- 
chosen for defense or ambuscade, and 
now overlooked by a monument erected 
in 1879 in commemoration of the event. 
Intrenched behind breastworks artfully 
concealed in the pine and shrub-oak 



20 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

thicket, about 1,200 Indians, English and 
Tories awaited the approach of General 
Sullivan's battalions. The Iroquois, 
numbering some 1,000 warriors, were 
under the leadership of Joseph Brant or 
Thayendanegea, the War Chief of the 
Six Nations, and the whites were com- 
manded by Colonel John Butler, noto- 
rious as the leader at Wyoming. 

The Sabbath stillness which had pre- 
vailed for centuries over the hills about 
the valley of the Chemung, was then 
broken for the first time by the reverber- 
ations of cannon. It was the roar of 
artillery from the forces at their front 
and a detachment which had gained a 
position in their rear, that struck terror 
to the hearts of the Iroquois, and they 
precipitately fled, leaving eleven warriors 
and one female dead on the ground. 
Four of the whites were killed, and car- 
ried from the field. Two prisoners, a 
Tory and a Negro, fell into the hands 
of General Sullivan. In the official report 
of the action, he placed his loss at three 
killed and thirty-nine wounded. Five of 
the injured men died at Tioga soon after 
the battle. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 21 

The Expedition sustained loss of life 
at ambuscades previous and subsequent 
to the Battle of Newtown. The first 
occurred near the scene of that conflict, 
on August 13th, when troops that had 
left Tioga to burn the village of Che- 
mung in order that it might not become 
a rendezvous of the enemy, were way- 
laid by the savage foe. Six men were 
killed and nine wounded, and later while 
destroying corn, one man was shot and 
five wounded by the Indians. The sec- 
ond ambuscade took place near the head 
of Conesus Lake, on September 13th. 
Of a scouting party, fifteen men were 
slain, eight escaped, and its leader, Lieu- 
tenant Thomas Boyd, and his sergeant, 
Michael Parker, were taken captive and 
put to death by torture. 

THE DEVASTATION. 

The Devastation of the land of the 
Senecas followed immediately upon tlie 
Battle of Newtown. The murk of that 
encounter yet rested over the valley, 
when the ominous cloud was augmented 
by the smoke of burning villages. The 



22 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

vanquished warriors nowhere made re- 
sistance, though up Seneca Lake came 
a force to support the routed horde, and 
one by one the Indian towns were deso- 
lated. There was much of the pageantry 
of war in the advance of General Sulli- 
van's column of horse and foot. The 
guns numbered four three-pounders and 
a light brass piece called a cohorn, and 
morning and evening their roar warned 
the defeated Iroquois that flight alone 
was possible. 

The mellowing haze of September 
brooded over the forest-covered slopes 
of Seneca and her sister lakes, as the 
flames of abandoned habitations marked 
the spots where destruction was rife in 
fields of corn, and orchards with their 
wealth of fruit were falling before the 
ranger's axe. On the plains of the Che- 
mung, upon the intervales skirting the 
waters of the lakes, and in the valley of 
the Genesee flourished many a broad 
expanse of maize, but ripening only for 
the wanton hand of the despoiler. Gen- 
eral Sullivan, in his report of the expedi- 
tion, estimated that at a moderate com- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 23 

putation 160,000 bushels of corn were 
destroyed with a vast quantity of veg- 
etables of every kind, while the fruit 
trees felled to the ground numbered 
among the thousands. 

The Indian towns doomed to destruc- 
tion during the campaign were located 
on or near the sites of the present cen- 
ters of population of the Lake Country. 
Before its waters were sighted and ere 
August had yet closed, the preliminary 
work of devastation had been accom- 
pHshed along the Susquehanna and Che- 
mung. Seven villages had been burned 
by General Clinton and three by the 
main army, before the meeting of forces 
at Tioga. Nine towns were destroyed 
about the Chemung; Newtown, Middle- 
town, Kanawaholla of twenty houses on 
the site of Elmira, and Runonvea, near 
Big Flats, ending in flames on August 
31st. 

The despoliation of Catharine's Town 
with its wealth of corn and fruit, oc- 
curred soon after the arrival of the 
troops on September ist; that of Peach 
Orchard, so-named for its fruits, the 



24 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

3rd; Condawhaw, now North Hector, 
the 4th; Kendaia or Appletown, the 5th; 
Butler's Buildings and Kanadaseaga, 
near the foot of Seneca Lake, the 7th; 
Gothseunquean, west side of Seneca, and 
Skoi-yase, now Waterloo, the 8th; Kan- 
andaigua, foot of Canandaigua Lake, the 
loth; Hanneyaye, near Honeoye, the 
nth; Kanaghsaws and Gathtsegwaro- 
hare, the 13th; Chenandanah or Genesee 
Castle, September 15th. Five towns were 
destroyed along the east side and as 
many on the west side of Cayuga Lake, 
before the burning of Coreorgonel on 
September 24th. This village of twenty- 
five houses was located three miles up 
Cayuga Inlet, and with it died the 
council-fires of the once powerful 
Catawba Nation. 

THE ENCAMPMENTS. 

The Encampments of the army after 
each day's destruction were usually on 
the sites of Indian villages, where the 
habitations furnished fire-wood, and the 
productions of fields of corn supple- 
mented the short allowance of rations 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 25 

to which the troops had consented after 
the Battle of Newtown. The cohimn 
tarried for a day after that contest, and 
also at each of the places of Catharine's 
Town, Kanadaseaga and Genesee Cas- 
tle. These three towns were the most 
important of the Seneca Nation — the 
first from its location near the head of 
Seneca Lake; the second for its Council 
House, and the third as the western 
door of the figurative Long House of 
the Iroquois. 

The village of Catharine's Town ex- 
tended along the banks of Catharine 
Creek, a short distance to the southward 
of the site of Havana. Its Indian name 
was Sheoquaga, and among its thirty 
houses was included the dwelling of 
Queen Catharine Montour. Kanada- 
seaga was located upwards of a mile 
westward of the site of Geneva, in prox- 
imity to a stream, and consisted of some 
fifty houses. It was also called Seneca 
Castle, and was the place of residence of 
the Chief Sachem of the Seneca Nation. 
The great village of the Senecas, Gene- 
see Castle or Chenandanah, was a town 



20 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

of about one hundred and thirty habi- 
tations, beautifully situated on the west 
shore of the Genesee River. 

Three garrisons were establislied dur- 
ing the expedition, and at their loca- 
tions encampments were made. The 
first garrison, at Fort Sullivan, con- 
sisted of 250 men in command of Col- 
onel Israel Shreve. The artillery in- 
cluded two six-pounders and four more 
pieces after the Battle of Newtown, and 
was in charge of Captain Wool. At 
Hanneyaye, near the foot of Honeoye 
Lake, a block-house was garrisoned 
September nth, and left in charge of 
Captain John Cumming till its evacua- 
tion on the 17th. Fort Reed was located 
where Newtown Creek joins Chemung 
River, on September 15th. It was a 
palisaded work in command of Captain 
John Reed, with 100 men and a three- 
pounder. There the army rested on its 
return, from September 24th to the 29th, 
and a feu-de-joie was an event of the 
25th. 

The longest encampment, from Au- 
gust nth to the 26th, was at Tioga or 



THE LAKE COUNT RV. 27 

'The Gate," a place considered as of 
great importance by the Iroquois, and 
the location of an Indian village until 
its destruction by Colonel Hartley in 
1778. From this strategical point ex- 
tends the valleys of the Chemung and 
Susquehanna, and their diverging 
branches led into the heart of the 
country of the Six Nations. Fort Sul- 
livan was constructed where the two 
rivers approach near each other, at about 
the center of the site of Athens, and in- 
cluded in the fortifications were four 
block-houses and a stockade. They 
were demolished on October 3rd, and 
the troops followed the Susquehanna 
southward. 

THE BARBARITIES. 

The Barbarities of warfare in the wil- 
derness were committed alike by troops 
and Indians. The dead warriors of the 
Battle of Newtown were scalped when 
found, and the legs of two of the bodies 
were skinned, to be tanned and used as 
leggins by two officers during the cam- 
paign. The soldiers slain were buried 



28 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

on the field of action, and fires built 
above to conceal their resting places 
from prowling savages, but Indian 
graves were rifled by members of the 
army at Tioga, Kendaia and Genesee 
Castle, though contrary to orders. Lieu- 
tenant Boyd suffered the most cruel tor- 
ture at his death, but his party had shot 
and scalped an Indian just before his 
capture. 

An aged squaw was found at Catha- 
rine's Town, and treated by General Sul- 
livan with much consideration, but she 
was not the sole habitant of its aban- 
doned houses. A younger squaw was 
hidden in the corn, who pretended to be 
lame when discovered, but soon after 
disappeared. On the army's return, the 
old squaw was still in the cabin erected 
for her by the troops, with a quart of 
corn at her side, while the dead body of 
the young-er squaw lay a short distance 
away, pierced by a bullet evidently from 
a ranger's rifle. The old squaw preferred 
remaining with a supply of provisions, 
to going with the army, and it is hoped 
that she was rescued by her race before 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 29 

the snows fell o'er the scene of desola- 
tion. 

At a deserted village on the west side 
of Cayuga Lake, Colonel Dearborn on 
his trail of desolation, found three 
squawks and a young Indian who w^as a 
cripple. Two of the squaws were made 
prisoners, leaving the other, an old 
crone, and the lad inmates of the only 
habitation of the town that was spared 
from the flames. The troops marched 
on, but it was reported among the mem- 
bers of the main army after the detach- 
ment had joined its forces at Fort Reed, 
that soldiers, disobeying the commands, 
had returned, and fastening the door of 
tlie cabin upon those within, fiendishly 
applied the torch and burned it to the 
ground. 

The captives of the campaign were 
few, more having been released from the 
Indians than taken by the troops. At 
Kendaia, Luke Swetland awaited the 
arrival of the army. He had been cap- 
tured at Wyoming, and made a member 
of an Indian family. A boy about three 
vears old, evidentlv stolen from some 



30 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

frontier home, was found at Kanada- 
seaga, naked and greatly emaciated, the 
only sharer of his solitude, a chicken 
with which he was playing. He was 
adopted by an officer, but died two 
years afterwards. While at Genesee Cas- 
tle, a white woman wath a child came to 
the army. Her husband had been slain 
and she made prisoner in an Indian raid. 
The child died on the return march. She 
became the wife of Roswell Franklin, 
the first settler of Cayuga county. 

THE RETREAT. 

The Iroquois in their retreat from 
homes and hunting-grounds were fre- 
quently but a few hours' march in ad-, 
vance of the military forces. The old 
squaw of Catharine's Town stated to 
General Sullivan, that after a spirited 
debate as to flight or battle, Butler and 
the Tories left in the boats, while early 
the next day the women and children 
v/ere sent away, the warriors then re- 
turning and remaining until nearly sun- 
set, departing but a short time before 
the troops entered the town. The re- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 3 1 

leased captive of Kendaia, said the de- 
feat at Newtown had been announced by 
Indian runners proclaiming the death 
halloo, in less than twenty-four hours 
after the conflict. 

Many evidences of the impression 
wrought upon the Indians by this disas- 
ter to their race were visible along the 
route, but the most striking were the 
finding of dogs hung up on poles some 
twelve feet high, as sacrifices to the God 
of War, and the discovery of an inscrip- 
tion on a tree near Catharine's Town, 
which was chronicled by an adept in 
wood-lore as follows: "This day found 
a tree marked 1779, Thandagana, the 
English of which is Brant, twelve men 
marked on it with arrows pierced 
through them signifying the number 
they had lost in the action of the 29th 
ultimo — a small tree was twisted round 
like a rope and bent down, which signi- 
fied that if we drove and distressed them 
yet we would not conquer them." 

The spirit of the Senecas, the Watch- 
men of the Confederacy of the Six Na- 
tions, had been broken, and far from 



^2 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

their forest haunts they congregated 
only to have their numbers decimated 
by disease. In inadequate quarters 
about Niagara, the pestilence finished 
the desolation of the Nation, begun by 
the forces of General Sullivan, whose 
home-returning was marked by the 
buoyancy of heart arising from victory. 
Wearied by toilsome marches, yet in- 
spirited by success, the troops arrived at 
Tioga on September 30th, having suf- 
fered a loss of but forty-one men during 
the campaign, which really closed with 
the burning of an Indian town located 
near Painted Post, by a detachment sent 
up the Chemung from Fort Reed, on 
the 27th. 

The army found no opportunity for 
celebration, until encamped at Fort 
Reed, where on September 25th, oc- 
curred a memiorable demonstration in 
honor of the Thirteen States and the 
achievements of the expedition. A salute 
of thirteen guns was followed by a run- 
ning fire through the lines of infantry, 
and cheering from the whole body of 
troops. Five oxen were barbecued on 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 33 

the occasion, and in one brigade thir- 
teen fires were kept burning and thir- 
teen toasts were drank. The fort was 
razed on the 29th, and the following day 
the army entered Fort Sullivan with 
military parade, to the strains of mar- 
tial music and the roar of artillery. The 
display preceded a jollification, which 
did not entirely cease until the day of 
evacuation, Sunday, October 3rd. 

THE CHRONICLE. 

The Chronicle of events of the Mili- 
tary Expedition was made by many of 
those who' participated in its dangers. 
In addition to the official report of the 
campaign by General Sullivan, several 
journals wxre kept, some in part, others 
in entirety, and most of them in detail. 
Each observer evidenced his inclinations 
in his notations, and thus the scenery, 
the physical features and the produc- 
tions of grain and fruit were themes of 
full descriptions. By research of these 
and other records were collated the 
facts presented in the foregoing articles, 
which briefly outline the occurrences of 
this epoch in Lake Country lore. 



34 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

The scenery was an object of especial 
note, the successive views unfolding be- 
fore the advancing column in all their 
pristine beauty. The pellucid waters of 
Lakes Seneca and Cayuga, mirroring 
wooded slopes broken only by the sil- 
very sheen of waterfalls, evoked expres- 
sions of deep admiration. The thrifty 
orchards, the abundance of maize, the 
fine forest growth indicating excellence 
of soil, the natural meadows on which 
fed horses and cattle were subjects of 
comment. One mentioned the killing 
of many large rattlesnakes; another the 
capture of a salmon upwards of two feet 
in length, while a third in remarking 
upon the great quantities of wild grapes 
growing near Canandaigua Lake, fore- 
shado\ved the vineyard acreage of to- 
day. 

The Indian houses varied in degrees 
of finish from the frail construction of 
bark to the substantial structure of logs, 
and were built about the village site 
with no observance of order. The dwell- 
ings, according to one account, might 
have been very comfortable had any 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 35 

convenience existed for the smoke to 
escape except a hole through the roof. 
One of the twenty habitations, however, 
of Kendaia was provided with a chim- 
ney. Queen Catharine's palace was a 
gambrel-roofed house about thirty feet 
long and eighteen wide. A Dutch 
family lived in Catharine's Town, and 
departed with the Indians, leaving be- 
hind a num.ber of feather beds. The 
best constructed Seneca village de- 
stroyed was Kanandaigua, consisting of 
tw^enty-three large houses, mostly new. 

An Indian grave was usually a shal- 
low resting place in which the dead en- 
cased in bark, moldered away in an 
unmarked mound, but o'er the remains 
of a chief a painted monumental post 
v/as ofttimes reared. Over some of the 
old graves about Tioga were raised 
mounds of earth to the height of lour or 
six feet, the bodies having first been laid 
but slightly beneath the surface of the 
ground. Tombs of different construc- 
tion from those elsewhere were found at 
Kendaia, the most notable evidently 
that of a chief. Covering the body was 



36 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

a casement about four feet high, with 
the sides and ends curiously painted in 
many colors, and over all was a shed of 
bark to protect the memorial from the 
elements. 

THE TRADITIONS. 

The Traditions attendant upon this 
martial advance into the Lake Country, 
will ever remain themes of interest to all 
dwellers within its borders. Along the 
trail of the invader, legend has located 
occurrences not recorded by the chron- 
iclers of the event, but which in general 
are doubtless true. Many who accom- 
panied General Sullivan on the march 
which blazed the way for the advance 
of civilization, returned at the close of 
the Revolution to rear their homes in 
this pleasant land, and to their recount 
of recollections is evidently due many of 
the incidents that have remained un- 
v.ritten annals of that olden time. 

A beetling cliff, along^ the rocky shore 
extending for some miles down the east- 
ern side of Seneca Lake from its head, 
is known as Painted Rocks. It was said 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. VJ 

by old settlers to have borne Indian 
paintings on its face in commemoration 
of a Seneca Chief, who there met death 
in a skirmish with the van-guard of Gen- 
eral Sullivan's troops. No record of 
such an encounter is extant, but a scout- 
ing party is known to have been sent to 
the lake from Catharine's Town, while 
the main army rested on September 2nd, 
and shots may have been exchanged 
with warriors in ambush in the thickets 
of that locality, with results unknown 
to the rangers, yet fatal to the skulking 
foe. 

The appellation of Poney Hollow, 
through which flows a tributary to Ca- 
}'uta Creek, arose from some fact con- 
nected with the return march of the de- 
tachment in command of Colonel But- 
ler. The course from the head of 
Cayuga Lake was up the Inlet, down 
the stream of Poney Hollow, and thence 
across country to the head-waters of 
Newtown Creek, which was followed to 
the Chemung. The derivation of the 
name of Horseheads is apparent, yet the 
record that horses of the expedition were 



38 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

killed at that point is quite obscure. The 
frequent breaking down of the gun- 
carriages probably gave rise to the tra- 
dition of a lost cannon, for all the field- 
pieces taken out on the trail were re- 
turned by the troops to Tioga. 

The western slope of Seneca in greater 
part and the picturesque shores of Lake 
Keuka in entirety, had their primeval 
solitudes unbroken by the army of inva- 
sion, and Indian burial places now mark 
the spots where villages existed then or 
at an earlier date. One located at the 
head of the West Branch of Keuka, 
rivals Canoga in the claim of having 
been the birthplace of Red Jacket, while 
the smoke of others arose from the head 
and foot of the lake. An Iroquois vil- 
lage once occupied the site of Watkins, 
for Indian graves are many to the east- 
ward of the entrance to Watkins Glen, 
and apple-trees planted by aborigines 
and spared by the troops because not 
found, flourished above them and fur- 
nished fruit for the pioneers. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 39 

THE COMMANDERS. 

The Commanders of the Expedition 
against the Indians were not only ex- 
perienced in war, but men of marked 
abihty as well as valor, most of them 
having become distinguished in civil life 
before the performance of meritorious 
service in the Revolution. The roster 
of officers included many names high on 
the roll of national honor, only those 
having been selected to lead the perilous 
undertaking who were known to have 
especial fitness for the work, and when 
the campaign was completed lustre had 
invariably been added to their fame. 

The Commander-in-Chief, Major Gen- 
eral John Sullivan, was born of Irish 
parentage in Somersworth, N. H., Feb- 
ruary 1 8th, 1740. He was a member of 
the Provincial Assembly in 1774, and a 
delegate to the Continental Congress 
the year following. He was appointed 
Brigadier General in June, 1775, ^^^ 
Major General in July, 1776. He par- 
ticipated in the battles of Long Island, 
the Brandywine, Germantown and oth- 
ers, but his greatest achievement was 



40 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

the successful leadership of the cam- 
paign in the Indian country. After the 
Revolution, General Sullivan repre- 
sented New Hampshire in Congress, 
and was Chief Magistrate of the State 
for several terms. He was appointed by 
President Washington, Judge of the 
United States District Court of New 
Hampshire, in 1789, and held the office 
until his death, January 23rd, 1795. 

Brigadier-General James Clinton was 
born August 9th, 1736, in Orange 
county, N. Y., where his death occurred 
December 22nd, 1812. He was the son 
of Colonel Charles Clinton, the brother 
of Governor George Clinton and the 
father of Governor DeWitt Clinton. 
After attaining an admirable Revolu- 
tionary record he held important civil 
positions. Brigadier-General Edward 
Hand was born in Ireland, December 
31st, 1744, and died in Lancaster county, 
Pa., September 4th, 1802. He acquired 
a knowledge of the Indian country while 
in command at Pittsburg, previous to 
the Expedition. Brigadier-General Wil- 
liam Maxwell was also of Irish descent, 



THE LAKE COUNTRY^ 4I 

but little is known of his personal his- 
tory. He died in November, 1798. 
Brigadier-General Enoch Poor resided 
most of his life at Exeter, N. H. He 
was born in Andover, Mass., June 21st, 
1736, and died September 9th, 1780. 

Colonel Henry Dearborn was born in 
Hampton, N. H., in March, 1751, and 
died in Roxbury, Mass., June 6th, 1829. 
He was Secretary of War under Presi- 
dent JefTerson. Colonel WiUiam Butler 
was of Irish descent, his family having 
settled in Cumberland county, Pa., prior 
to 1760. He died at Pittsburg in 1789. 
Colonel Peter Gansevoort was of a 
Knickerbocker family, and born in 
Albany July 17th, 1749. His death oc- 
curred after receiving many honors, 
July 2nd, 1 81 2. Colonel Thomas Proc- 
tor was born in Ireland, but in early life 
came to Philadelphia, where he died 
March i6th, 1806. The ill-fated Lieu- 
tenant Thomas Boyd was from Derry, 
Pa., and but twenty-two years old at his 
untimely death. 



42 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

THE SACHEMS. 

The Sachems of the Six Nations were 
men of prowess and sagacity, as well 
when driven from the Lake Country as 
in the past. Giengwahtoh, or **He who 
goes in the smoke," the most powerful 
Sachem of his time, had his home in 
Kanadaseaga from which he fled to 
Niagara. He had the honor, accorded 
to no other, of carrying the brand by 
which the council fires were lighted. As 
Civil Chief of the Senecas his word was 
law, and his decisions when convened in 
council were never questioned. His 
descendant. Young King, allied his war- 
riors with the forces of the United States 
during the War of 1812. 

The War Chief of the Confederacy 
was Joseph Brant, a descendant of a 
Sachem of the Mohawks and called by 
the Indians, Thayendanegea. Among 
the Iroquois, in peace the voice of the 
principal Sachem was potential, in war 
he was but a counselor while the War 
Chief became the dictator. Brant em- 
braced his opportunity and led the war- 
riors to the fray with savage ferocity, 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 43 

but only to final defeat. He was the im- 
placable foe of the Colonies, and his 
name became the synonym of slaughter 
to the settlers of the border. Yet withal, 
he was a man of ability and high accom- 
plishments for his race. He died on 
British soil, November 24th, 1807, at the 
age of sixty-five years. 

The eloquence characteristic of the 
Iroquois had its greatest exponent 
among the Senecas in Sagoyewatha, or 
Red Jacket. He was yet a young man 
when his Nation was driven from lake- 
side haunts, and it was not until the 
great councils following the war, that 
his oratorical powers gave him distinc- 
tion. He lived to see his people despoiled 
of their lordly domain, and their clans 
scattered to pent up reservations. As a 
means of preservation of his race, he 
urged adherence to old customs and the 
upholding of the ancient belief. Red 
Jacket died in the Seneca village near 
Buffalo, January 20th, 1830, at the esti- 
mated age of seventy years. The site 
of his supposed birthplace, was marked 
at Canoga on Cayuga Lake, in 1891. 



44 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

The Seneca Chief Cornplanter or 
Gaantuaha, like Red Jacket was a natural 
orator, but of greater age at the period 
of invasion, and was also a warrior of 
prominence. Both spake burning words 
in behalf of their Nation at the treaty of 
peace with the United States in 1784, 
and ever after each remained the firm 
friend of the government. Their rivalr}-' 
for leadership among their people con- 
tinued long, the latter finally triumph- 
ing. Cornplanter died March 7th, 1836, 
aged upwards of one hundred years. 
The closing scenes of his life were 
among the Allegany clans of the Sene- 
cas, whom he endeavored to bring into 
a state of civilization. 

THE WOMEN. 

The Women of the Iroquois were in- 
fluential factors in tribal affairs, and in 
the household regulated m^atters alto- 
gether, prescribing the locations of 
cabins and dictating removals. It was 
an equitable feature of Indian polity that 
the lands belonged to those who tilled 
them as w^ell as the warriors who de- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 45 

fended them, and hence in treaties as to 
their disposal the opinions of the women 
were treated with deference. At the 
great council of the Six Nations and the 
United States, in Canandaigua, the 
autumn of 1794, women were allowed 
to express their sentiments before the 
assemblage. 

The regal titles of two women are 
prominent in the annals of the Military 
Expedition, though about them clusters 
more or less of tradition. Queen Esther 
is a name that will ever be inseparably 
connected with the atrocities of Wyom- 
ing. She is said to have been the grand- 
daughter of Madame Montour, the 
daughter of French Margaret, and a 
sister of Queen Catharine. Her only 
son was slain at Wyommg, and her un- 
paralleled barbarities at the massacre, 
the tomahawking of prisoners, were to 
avenge his death. Her village, located 
on the Susquehanna near the junction of 
the Chemung, was burned by Colonel 
Thomas Hartley shortly after this event, 
and her deeds were no more of disaster 
throughout the valley-side. 



46 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

Catharine INIontour has her name per- 
petuated in stream and valley about the 
site of Sheoquaga, the Iroquois village 
over which she ruled as Queen Cath- 
arine. The statements as to her life are 
as of romance. Her reputed father was 
one of the early French governors of 
Canada, and her maternal lineage traced 
from Madame Montour, a noted per- 
sonage in the Colonial history of Penn- 
sylvania. She was taken captive in a 
war-raid of the Six Nations and adopted 
by the Senecas, a Chief of that Nation, 
Thomas Hudson or Telenemut, becom- 
ing her husband. Of her children little 
is known, save that she had two daugh- 
ters and one son, Amochol. After the 
flight of her people, she passed her life 
amid the scenes about Niagara. 

The "White Woman of the Genesee" 
was a noted personage among the Sen- 
ecas during the Revolution. Her name 
was Mary Jemison before her marriage, 
first to a Delaware Chief and after his 
death to a Seneca Chief. When a child, 
in 1754, her parents, two brothers and 
other members of the family had been 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 47 

murdered by the Indians, and she taken 
captive. As time progressed she became 
thoroughly an Iroquois in all her habits, 
and she did not discard her Indian cos- 
tume even after civilization had changed 
the valley. She died about the year 
1825, rich in flocks and herds as well as 
in lands. 

THE TREATIES. 

The Six Nations driven from the 
country about the lakes by the Military 
Expedition of 1779, returned not again 
to hold supremacy along their waters, 
and though divested of the prestige of 
power by the campaign, the hatchet 
was not formally buried by the 
warring element of the Confederacy 
until the council with representatives of 
the United States, at Fort Stanwix, on 
the site of Rome, in the fall of 1784. 
By that treaty of peace the Indians were 
received under the protection of the gov- 
ernment, and secured in the possession 
of the lands of which they were then 
occupants. 

Council fires burned at deliberations 



48 THE LAKE COUNTRY, 

between the Iroquois and the United 
States, in November, 1790, at Tioga, and 
again in June, 1791, at Painted Post. 
These assemblages were convoked by 
the government for the purpose of di- 
verting the attention of the Indians of 
New York from the wars of the western 
tribes, and the endeavors to that end 
were successful. The last general coun- 
cil held by the United States and the 
Confederacy occurred during the au- 
tumn of 1794, at Canandaigua, with the 
result of the establishment of relations 
upon a permanent basis. Reservations 
to the Oneidas, Onondagas and Cayugas 
were confirmed, and the boundaries fully 
determined to the country of the still 
numerous Seneca Nation. 

The Treaty of Big Tree, on the site 
of Geneseo, in September, 1797, extin- 
puished the title of the Six Nations to 

o 

their ancient possessions, with the excep- 
tion of reservations that at councils in 
subsequent years were released or 
greatly lessened in area. Though not 
principals in the transaction, both the 
United States and Massachusetts were 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 49 

represented at the negotiations, which 
were conducted with the Seneca Na- 
tion by capitaHsts, the precursors of 
settlement. The great purchase of land 
consummated, included about two-thirds 
of that portion of the State west of the 
Pre-emption Line, the rest having been 
obtained at a treaty with the Indians, in 
July, 1788, at Kanadaseaga. 

The Senecas now occupy two reserva- 
tions — the Allegany of 30,469 acres, and 
the Cattaraugus of 21,680 acres. Their 
population was 2,139 in 1889. The Tus- 
caroras have 6,249 ^cres near Niagara 
River, and numbered that year 409. The 
Tonawandas, a branch of the Senecas, 
have 7,547 acres, occupied by about 500 
Indians. The Onondagas, yet recognized 
as leaders of the Six Nations, have 7,300 
acres, on which reside some 450 Indians; 
about 125 of the nation being with the 
Senecas. The Oneidas are in Wisconsin, 
except 178 near Oneida Lake; 75 with 
the Onondagas, and 30 with the Tusca- 
roras. The Cayugas removed to Indian 
Territory, save 160 with the Senecas and 
a few with the Tonawandas. The Mo- 



50 - THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

hawks left the State for Canada during 
the Revolution. 

THE PRE-EMPTION. 

The Revolution closed with a dispute 
as to extent of territory, pending be- 
tween the States of New York and 
Massachusetts. The colonial charter of 
the latter conveyed the region between 
its north and south boundaries from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, and the subse- 
quent charter of New York conflicted 
with this grant. An amicable arrange- 
ment of the matter was effected in De- 
cember, 1786, Massachusetts then relin- 
quishing the claim to jurisdiction but 
retaining the right of the pre-emption 
of the soil from the Indians, to that por- 
tion of New York west of a designated 
survey, thenceforth known as the Pre- 
em^ption Line. 

The right of purchase from the Six 
Nations thus acquired by Massachusetts 
extended over a tract of some 7,000,000 
acres, and in 1787, the whole claim was 
sold by that State to Oliver Phelps and 
Nathaniel Gorham for $1,000,000. At 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 5 1 

Kanadaseaga the following year, they 
secured title to the eastern third of the 
land, an area extending in a body from 
Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario, and from 
the Pre-emption to a line parallel with 
and twelve miles west of the Genesee 
River. The remainder of the tract re- 
verted to Massachusetts, and was re-sold 
to Robert Morris, of Philadelphia. After 
the procurement of the Indian title, at 
the council in 1797, at Big Tree, it be- 
came mainly the property of the Hol- 
land Land Company. 

The Pre-emption Line extends from the 
eighty-second milestone on the boundary 
between New York and Pennsylvania, 
northward to Lake Ontario, and is the 
most prominent landmark connected 
with the settlement of the Lake Country. 
It is on the meridian of Washington, 
strikes Seneca Lake at Dresden, passes 
east of Geneva and to the head of Great 
Sodus Bay, dividing the counties of 
Chemung and Steuben and Seneca and 
Ontario. The survey of the true line, 
known as the "New Pre-emption Line," 
was made in 1795, under direction of 



52 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

Major Hoops assisted by Andrew Elli- 
cott and Augustus Porter. A vista 
thirty feet wide was opened through the 
forest by a corps of axe-men, and signals 
were employed in the course over 
Seneca. 

The ''Old Pre-emption Line" was run 
at an earlier date, and through the influ- 
ence of land-owners who desired it lo- 
cated to the west of Geneva, the sur- 
veyors did not follow the true meridian. 
The deviation began soon after leaving 
the Pennsylvania border, and gradually 
continued until the outlet of Lake Keuka 
was crossed. Then the line bore more 
to the westward till opposite the foot of 
Seneca Lake, when a northerly course 
was resumed and Lake Ontario reached 
about three miles west of Great Sodus 
Bay. The strip of territory between the 
two surveys was called 'The Gore," and. 
the State having made grants of the 
tract, compensation lands were allotted 
as an equivalent, on the establishment of 
the true line. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 53 

THE TITLES. 

The Titles to the lands of Central- 
Western New York are derived from the 
Massachusetts Pre-emption, the Military 
Tract, and Patents to land companies 
and individuals. The subdivisions of the 
Massachusetts lands were the Phelps 
and Gorham purchase, not reverting, of 
2,600,000 acres; Holland Company's 
purchase, 3,600,000; the Morris Reserve, 
500,000; Sterritt tract, 150,000; Connec- 
ticut tract, 100,000; Church tract, 
100,000; Triangular tract, 87,000; Mor- 
ris creditors' tract, 58,570; Cragie, 
Ogden and Cottinger tracts, each of 
50,000; Forty-thousand acre tract. Mass- 
achusetts also had title to the "Boston 
Ten Towns" of 230,400 acres, now in 
Broome and Tioga counties. 

The Military Tract consisted of 
twenty-eight townships, each contain- 
ing some 60,000 acres, divided into 100 
lots. The Onondagas in 1788, ceded to 
the State all their country except a res- 
ervation, and the tract thus acquired and 
one adjoining it on the west were set 
apart for bounty lands to Revolutionary 



54 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

soldiers, who were required to make set- 
tlement within seven years from Janu- 
ary 1st, 1790. The area of the Military 
Tract included all the territory within 
the original limits of Onondaga county, 
and now constituting the counties of 
Onondaga, Cortland, Cayuga and Sen- 
eca and parts of Oswego, Wayne, Tomp- 
kins and Schuyler. The southwestern 
township was Hector, which of the en- 
tire twenty-eight, alone retains its first 
boundaries. 

The Patent granted to John W. Wat- 
kins and Royal Flmt, with whom were 
associated other residents of New York 
City, in the year 1794, included upwards 
of 300,000 acres located to the southward 
of Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. The ap- 
plication had been made as early as 
1 791, for the purchase of all the unlo- 
cated part of the tract, which was 
bounded on the west by the Pre-emption 
Line, on the south by the Township of 
Chemung, on the east by the "Boston 
Ten Towns," on the north by the Mili- 
tary Tract to the head of Seneca Lake, 
and thence to the Pre-emption, by a tract 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 55 

sold to James Watson. Of the several 
locations of lands then existing within 
the limits of the purchase, the largest 
was that of Ezra L'Hommedieu of 
5,440 acres, about the site of Havana. 

The James Watson tract extended 
along Seneca Lake, northward from its 
head, its boundary upon the west the 
Pre-emption Line, and was of an area 
estimated at over 50,000 acres. He and 
others also bought 14,550 acres of the 
unappropriated lands in the Township 
of Chemung. Along Seneca Lake, about 
the outlet to Lake Keuka, James Parker 
in behalf of the followers of Jemima Wil- 
kinson, known as the Friends, purchased 
some 12,000 acres. North of this tract, 
Seth Reed and Peter Ryckman had se- 
cured title of the State to 16,000 acres, 
located southward from the foot of 
Seneca Lake between its western shore 
and the Pre-emption Line. The patent 
was issued before the first survey, and 
fully accounts for the deviation of course 
of the line then run. 



56 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

THE ESTATES. 

The Land Companies disposed of their 
possessions, either by allotment among 
members or by sale to investors in large 
estates, who transferred to purchasers 
of small holdings. The cost to settlers 
was slight even after several changes of 
title, because of the original low prices 
of land. The Watson purchase was at 
the rate of three shillings and seven- 
pence per acre; the Watkins and Flint 
patent, at three shillings and fourpence, 
the State reserving all gold and silver 
mines and five acres in every loo for 
highways; the Parker purchase, at two 
shillings and one shilling and sixpence. 
The lands of the Military Tract in town- 
ship lots, were rated at one shilling and 
eightpence per acre. 

The Watkins and Flint purchase was 
surveyed so as to create twelve town- 
ships, each including four sections. The 
Watson tract was divided into great lots, 
containing from twelve to sixteen small 
lots of lOO acres in extent. Among those 
acquiring estates through the granting 
of these patents, and by subsequent pur- 



T]£E LAKE COUNTRY. 57 

chase or inheritance, were Jonathan 
Lawrence, Robert C. Livingston, John 
Lamb, John Ireland, Robert C. Johnson, 
Joshua Brooks, Charles Wilkes, John 
S. Livingston, Lewis Simonds, Harmon 
Pumpelly, Elisha Bondinot, John L. 
Clarkson, James Pumpelly, Samuel W, 
Johnson and Isaac Q. Leake. Dr. Samuel 
Watkins succeeded his brothers, John 
W. and Charles Watkins, as landed pro- 
prietor at the head of Seneca Lake. 

The lands of the Phelps and Gorham 
purchase were placed on sale to settlers 
as early as 1789, when the first regular 
land-oflBce in America was opened at 
Canandaigua by Oliver Phelps. The 
system of survey by townships and 
ranges then inaugurated, became the 
basis for laying out all new lands of the 
United States. Each township sold by 
selection was accompanied by another 
chosen by lot, and the same amounts in 
payment were required for both. A 
large portion of this tract passed into 
the hands of William Pulteney and oth- 
ers of London, whose agent, Charles 
Williamson, in 1792 and following years. 



58 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

unsuccessfully endeavored to establish 
the metropolis of the Genesee Country 
on the site of Bath. 

The Township of Chemung was 
created by the Legislature in March, 
1788, and hence was the first civil divis- 
ion about the Pre-emption Line, which 
was its west boundary. The south limit 
was the line between New York and 
Pennsylvania; the north having been 
some ten miles distant and parallel there- 
with, and its east boundary following the 
courses of Owego Creek and Susque- 
hanna River. Previous to its erection, 
various land-owners had become pos- 
sessed of estates within its borders, rang- 
ing in extent from 1,000 acres up to the 
many thousands of individuals and asso- 
ciations, but after the survey then au- 
thorized, the allotments were not less 
than 100 nor more than 1,000 acres, pur- 
chased at the price of one shilling and 
sixpence per acre. 

THE COUNTIES. 

The Counties of Ontario, Tioga, Steu- 
ben, Cayuga, Seneca, Tompkins, Liv- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 59 

ingston, Yates, Wayne, Chemung and 
Schuyler extend their areas at present 
over the section of the State affected by 
the invasion of the land of the Iroquois, 
in 1779. Their dates of formation, in 
the order as given, cover a period com- 
mencing ten years after that event and 
continuing until three-quarters of a cen- 
tury had elapsed. Albany county, 
created November ist, 1683, by subse- 
quent statutes was made to comprise all 
the colony of New York, north and west 
of its other limits. Montgomery county, 
as "Tryon county,'' March 12th, 1772, 
was set off to the westward of the Dela- 
ware River. 

Ontario county was formed from 
Montgomery, January 27th, 1789, and 
then included all of New York west of 
the Pre-emption Line. Its great dis- 
memberment occurred March 20th, 
1802, when the country beyond the Gen- 
esee River was organized as Genesee 
county, although Steuben county had 
previously been taken off. It was not 
until 1823, and after further territory had 
been furnished for portions of Living- 



60 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

ston, Monroe, Wayne and Yates coun- 
ties, that boundaries became fixed, 
Steuben county was created from On- 
tario, March i8th, 1796, and after con- 
tributing to parts of Allegany, Living- 
ston, Yates and Schuyler, its area, 
which is still the greatest of the counties 
of Western New York, became of per- 
manent character in 1854. 

Tioga county was set ofif from Mont- 
gomery, February i6th, 1791. It ex- 
tended as far east as the Delaware River 
and westward to the Pre-emption Line, 
between the State of Pennsylvania and 
the county of Herkimer, also formed 
from Montgomery the same day. Parts 
of ChenangO' and Tompkins and the en- 
tire counties of Broome and Chemung 
were taken from the territory of Tioga, 
previous to the close of 1836. Onon- 
daga county, which included the Mili- 
tary Tract, was organized from Her- 
kimer, March 5th, 1794. On March 8th, 
1799, its western portion became Cayuga 
county, from which was taken Seneca in 
1804, and a part of Tompkins in 1817, 
leaving its bounds thenceforth intact. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 6l 

Thus, Ontario, Tioga, Steuben and 
Cayuga were the counties of the lakes 
in 1800. 

Seneca county was created from 
Cayuga, March 29th, 1804, and originally 
comprised that portion of the Military 
Tract west of Cayuga Lake. Its south- 
ern towns went to Tompkins in 18 17, 
and its northern part to Wayne in 1823. 
Tompkins county was formed from 
Cayuga and Seneca, April 17th, 1817. 
Towns were annexed from Tioga, March 
22nd, 1822, and territory set off to 
Schuyler in 1854. Livingston county 
was organized from Ontario and Gen- 
esee, February 23rd, 1821, and in 1846 
and '56, portions of Allegany were 
added; Yates county, from Ontario, 
February 5th, 1823, and towns were an- 
nexed from Steuben, April 6th, 1824; 
Wayne county, from Ontario and Sen- 
eca, April nth, 1823; Chemung county, 
from Tioga, March 29th, 1836; Schuyler 
county, from Chemung, Steuben and 
Tompkins, April 17th, 1854. 



62 THE LAKE COUNTRY^ 

THE OFFICIALS. 

The Officials of Ontario county were 
the first in Western New York, and as 
follows: Judge, Oliver Phelps; Clerk, 
Nathaniel Gorham; Sherifif, Judah Coit; 
Surrogate, John Cooper. A circuit court 
was held at Patterson's Inn, Geneva, in 
June, 1793, and a court of common 
pleas at the house of Nathaniel Sanbern 
in Canandaigua, in November, 1794. 
The first Justices of the Peace west of the 
Pre-emption Line were Asa Ransom and 
William Rumsey appointed in Decem- 
ber, 1 801. Steuben's sole county-seat 
was at Bath until 1853, when the crea- 
tion of two jury districts caused the erec- 
tion of county buildings at Corning. 
The first officials were: Judge, William 
Kersey; Clerk, George D. Cooper; 
Sheriff, William Dunn; Surrogate, Ste- 
phen Ross. 

Tioga was formed a half-shire county 
by the act of organization, which pro- 
vided that the courts should be held 
alternately at Chenango, now Bingham- 
ton, and at Newtown Point, now El- 
mira. The half-shire was abolished upon 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 63 

the creation of Broome county in 
1806, and soon afterwards Spencer vil- 
lage became the county-seat of Tioga, 
which in 1812 was again divided into 
two jury districts, with courts at Elmira 
and Spencer. The court-house at the 
latter place was burned in 1821, and the 
following year Owego was designated 
in its stead, to become the sole county- 
seat on setting ofif Chemung county. The 
first officials of Tioga were: Judge, 
Abram Miller; Clerk, Thomas Nichol- 
son; Sherifif,. James McMasters; Surro- 
gate, John Mersereau. 

Cayuga county courts up to 1808, 
when new county buildings were occu- 
pied at Auburn, were held at Aurora, 
on the east shore of Cayuga Lake. In 
1803, Daniel D. Tompkins there presided 
at a circuit court and court of oyer and 
terminer, at which an Indian was tried 
and convicted of the murder of Ezekial 
Crane, Jr. The first officials of Cayuga 
w^ere: Judge, Seth Phelps; Clerk, Ben- 
jamin Ledyard; Sheriff, Joseph Annin; 
Surrogate, Glen Cuyler; District Attor- 
ney, William Stuart. The county-seat of 



64 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

Seneca was at Ovid from 1804 to 181 7, 
and then at Waterloo until 1822, when 
two jury districts were created and courts 
held alternately at each place. The first 
officials were: Judge, Cornelius Humph- 
rey ; Clerk, Silas Halsey ; Sheriff, William 
Smith; Surrogate, Jared Sandford. 

Tompkins county's first officials were: 
Judge, Oliver C. Comstock; Clerk, 
Archer Green; Sheriff, Henry Bloom; 
Surrogate, Andrew Bruyn. Livingston 
county — Judge, Moses Hayden; Clerk, 
James Ganson; Sheriff, Gideon T. Jen- 
kins; Surrogate, James Roseburgh. 
Yates county — Judge, William M. Oli- 
ver; Clerk, Abraham H. Bennett; Sher- 
iff, James P. Robinson ; Surrogate, Abra- 
ham P. Vosburgh; District Attorney, 
James Taylor. Wayne county — Judge 
and Surrogate, John S. Talmadge; Clerk, 
Isaiah J. Richardson; Sheriff, Hugh 
Jameson; District Attorney, William H. 
Adams. Chemung countv — Judge, Jo- 
seph L. Darling; Clerk, Isaac Baldwin; 
Sheriff, Albert A. Beckwith; Surrogate, 
Lyman Covill; District Attorney, An- 
drew K. Gregg. Schuyler county — 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 65 

Judge and Surrogate, Simeon L. Rood; 
Clerk, A. S. Newcomb; Sheriff, John J. 
Swartwood; District Attorney, Lewis F. 
Riggs. 

THE PIONEERS. 

The Pioneers included representatives 
of every State in the Union and nearly 
every country in Europe, all endeavor- 
ing to advance the interests of com- 
munity, and from this commingling of 
character has developed the people, 
whose efforts to-day are worthily con- 
serving the wealth of resource of their 
pleasant heritage about the lakes. The 
deeds of this advance guard are dimmed 
already by the mists of years; their 
works have followed them to the obscur- 
ity of time ; like the race which they suc- 
ceeded, their remains are moldering in 
neglected resting places. They planned, 
they labored, they accompHshed, laying 
well the foundations of prosperity. 

Indian traders led the van of settle- 
ment in the Southern Tier, Amos 
Draper thus establishing himself on the 
site of Owego in 1785, and William Har- 



66 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

ris at Painted Post in 1787. The former 
was joined by James, William and 
Robert McMaster, John IMcQuigg, Wil- 
liam Taylor, John Nealey and William 
Wood, and the latter by David Fuller, 
Eli Mead and Van Nye, Samuel, Frank 
and Arthur Erwin, Howell Bull and 
John Evans. The first settlers on the 
Chemung were William Wynkoop, Wil- 
liam and Elijah Buck, Daniel McDowell, 
Joseph Bennett, Thomas Burt, Enoch 
Warren and son. Colonel John Hendy 
located on the site of Elmira; Frederick 
Calkins and Benjamin Eaton at Corning, 
followed by Benjamin and Peleg Gorton, 
Ephraim Patterson and others. 

Among the pioneers on the town sites, 
up to the close of 1790, were the follow- 
ing: Geneva, Seth Reed, Peter Ryck- 
man, Horatio Jones, Asa Ransom, Lark 
Jennings, Doctor Benton, Peter Bortle 
and Jonathan Whitney; Canandaigua, 
Nathaniel Gorham, Jr., Frederick Sax- 
ton, Joseph Smith, Israel Chapin and 
Benjamin Gardner; Lyons, Nicholas and 
William Stansell and John Featherly; 
Naples, Samuel Parish and William 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 6/ 

Watkins and brothers; Geneseo, James 
and William Wadswortli; Honeoye, 
Peter Pitts; Palmyra, John Swift; Water- 
loo, John Greene; Ovid, Andrew Dun- 
lap; Ithaca, Jacob Yaple, Isaac Dumond 
and Peter Hinepaw; Watkins, David 
Culver, Daniel Smyth and John 
Dow; Havana, Silas Wolcott, William 
McClure, Phineas Bowers and George 
Mills. 

The first settler of the Military Tract 
was Job Smith, on the site of Seneca 
Falls in 1787. He was joined by Law- 
rence Van Clief. The pioneer of Cayuga 
county, Roswell Franklin, died at Au- 
rora in 1 79 1. Mrs. Jedediah Holmes died 
near the site of Dresden in 1788; Caleb 
Walker in Canandaigua, and Rachel 
Allen at the head of Cayuga Lake, in 
1790; George Dunlap, near Ovid in 
1 791; Mrs. Job Smith, at Seneca Falls 
in 1792; Elizabeth Barber and Jean 
M'Gahen, at the head of Seneca Lake 
in 1793; Ichabod Patterson, on the site 
of Corning in 1794. These graves of 
the wilderness, with the exception of the 
battle-slain, were doubtless the first 



68 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

made in the land, where previously had 
rested but the dead of the Iroquois. 

THE SETTLEMENT. 

The Settlement of the Lake Country 
was fully underway within ten years after 
the campaign against the Six Nations, 
and among the home-seekers were many 
who had been numbered in the army of 
invasion. In their work of devastation, 
the troops had noted the attractions of 
the region and the advantages that 
awaited but the hand of enterprise. In- 
dications were unmistakable that by 
direction of white men, had been planted 
the fields of corn and reared the cabins 
of hewn logs which were features of the 
villages, but it was no less apparent, 
that at a far earlier time the seeds of the 
trees of fruit had been placed in the 
receptive soil by the Iroquois. 

The treaty of 1784 prepared the way 
for occupancy by settlers, but it was not 
until a year or so later that clearings 
were commenced within the wilderness. 
Two lines of pioneers trailed from the 
bounds of civilization into the broad ex- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 69 

panse of primeval forest, from which the 
Indian had been driven but where still 
lurked beasts of prey. Those from East- 
ern New York and the rocky hillsides of 
New England arrived by way of the 
Mohawk River, while the thoroughfare 
from the plains of New Jersey and 
Southern Pennsylvania was the pathway 
followed by the soldiers of Sullivan. The 
meeting place of these advancing hosts 
is perpetuated in the name of Penn Yan, 
midway of the northern and southern 
limits of the land of the lakes. 

The settlers from Pennsylvania estab- 
Hshed themselves along the Susque- 
hanna and Chemung, within the borders 
of New York, as early as 1786, an Indian 
trader occupying the site of Owego the 
preceding year. In 1787, a trader set- 
tled at Painted Post, while the same year 
people from New England located on 
the site of Geneva, and log-houses were 
erected at Seneca Falls and about the 
outlet of Lake Keuka. In 1788, settle- 
ments were made on the sites of Elmira, 
Corning, Havana, Watkins and Canan- 
daigua; in 1789, Horseheads, Ithaca, 



70 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

Ovid, Aurora, Waterloo, Penn Yan, 
Honeoye, Lyons and Palmyra; in 1790, 
Naples and Geneseo; in 1791, Newark 
and Wayne; in 1792, Bath and Trumans- 
burg; in 1793, Auburn and Hammonds- 
port. 

Several of the locations on present 
centers of population, for a year or two 
were marked by lone cabins, but the tide 
of incoming travel continually aug- 
mented in volume, and in 1793, the in- 
habitants of the Genesee Lands to the 
westward of the Pre-emption Line, were 
numbered at 7,000, while those re- 
siding on the Military Tract and the 
lands to its southward about the Che- 
mung and Susquehanna, were estimated 
at 6,640. The people living in the prin- 
cipal villages then established were enu- 
merated as follows: Canandaigua, 99; 
Geneva, 100; the Friends' settlement, 
260; Culver's Town, at head of Seneca 
Lake, 70; Catharine's Town, 30; New- 
town, now Elmira, 100; Chemung Town, 
three miles down the river from New- 
town, 50. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 7 1 

THE DEVELOPMENT. 

The Development of the region of the 
lakes followed rapidly upon the initial 
events of settlement. The advance of 
improvement was along the water-side, 
and nearly every point became the scene 
of enterprise. The ruins of limekilns, 
the marks of charcoal pits, the rock-cuts 
where saw-mills and still-houses dotted 
the streams, remain as mute reminders 
of the leading industries of the time. 
The woodman's axe was swung with tell- 
ing efifect in the early years, and as the 
clearings continually expanded in area, 
loggings, raisings and road-openings 
evoked the endeavors of the inhabitants, 
on many an enjoyable occasion of gene- 
ral assemblage. 

Saw and grist-mills were manufac- 
tories soon established by the settlers, 
who until their construction, were 
obliged to whip-saw logs for lumber, and 
pound their grain in mortars hollowed 
from the tops of stumps, with pestles 
attached to spring-poles. The first grist- 
mill in Western New York was built in 
1789, two and one-half miles from the 



']2 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

site of Penn Yan down Crooked Lake 
Outlet, by Richard Smith, James Parker 
and Abraham Dayton. In 1790, mills 
were erected at the head of Cayuga Lake 
and near Canandaigua Lake; in 1791, 
they were in operation about the Che- 
mung; 1792, on the sites of Naples and 
Owego; 1793, at Bath, the site of Corn- 
ing and near Ovid; in 1794, or previous 
thereto, at the head of Seneca Lake. 

The Friends, that peculiar people from 
Rhode Island whose religious belief died 
with its members from the earth, in 1789 
harvested the first wheat crop raised in 
Western New York, which was floured 
in the grist-mill erected by them that 
year. The settlement of the twenty-five 
pioneers of the sect, in 1787, was about 
one mile south of the site of Dresden, 
and its location was determined on be- 
cause of the extensive water power that 
could there be utilized. The first framed 
house in what is now Yates county, was 
constructed on a farm of 1,000 acres, set 
apart for the use of the founder of the 
Friends, Jemima Wilkinson, who joined 
the colony with a large number of fol- 
lowers, in 1789. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 73 

The promoters of the Pulteney estate 
were the most active developers of the 
Genesee Lands. After the location of 
Bath, every inducement was held out to 
settlers, and for several years its markets 
ranked high in importance. What were 
known as arks, constructions some fif- 
teen feet wide and seventy feet long, 
were there made as well as at other 
points on the Chemung and tributaries, 
in 1800, and loaded with wheat floated 
down the Susquehanna to sea-board 
marts, where they were taken apart and 
both the lumber and the grain readily 
sold. The rising waters of these rivers 
in early spring, bore southward on their 
currents immense rafts of timber, to be 
fashioned into ocean fleets at the ship- 
yards of Baltimore. 

THE INDUSTRIES. 

The Industries of the time of settle- 
ment were dependent largely upon the 
abundance of forest products, and with 
the clearing of the land, enterprises that 
had flourished at an earlier day waned 
in importance, until like the primitive 



74 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

log-cabins only the sites remained. As 
the timber disappeared saw-mills were 
abandoned, asheries were rendered use- 
less, charcoal-pits were no longer lo- 
cated, and maple-sugar making became 
almost a thing of the past. Lime-burn- 
ing and distilling were continued in 
small constructions and with rude appli- 
ances, until the many plants of the pio- 
neers had given place to the fewer ex- 
tensive establishments with modern ma- 
chinery. 

The asheries were aggregations of 
leach-tubs, where lye was obtained from 
wood-ashes gathered from settlers' 
hearths, and subsequently reduced by 
boiling to the substance known as pot- 
ash, which after a process of calcining 
became the grayish powder called pearl- 
ash. Charcoal-pits contained usually 
about ten cords of wood, compactly 
placed on end around an open center in 
which the fire was kindled. About the 
pile earth was banked with vents near the 
ground, and constant watching was nec- 
essary during the eight to ten days re- 
quired for combustion. The limekilns 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 75 

were circular enclosures of stone built 
into earth-banks convenient to the water- 
ways, and their blackened, crumbling 
walls remain reminders of the past, on 
many of the points of the lakes. 

Maple-sugar making in the olden days 
was an operation amid sylvan surround- 
ings, whose charms mitigated the few 
irksome features incident to the under- 
taking. The thrift and abundance of the 
maples about the lakes had awakened 
even the interest of the soldiers, and at- 
tracting the attention of the settlers in 
turn, the sugar-tree was spared no mat- 
ter how ruthless the onslaught upon 
other growths of the forest. When the 
buds appeared in late February, the 
sugar-bush became the scene of activity. 
Trees were tapped and kettles hung, and 
as the gathering of the sap progressed, 
ofttimes a "sugaring-of¥" would cause 
assemblage of a company for merriment 
at night, while bonfires lighted far into 
the lonely woods. 

The still-house equipment was far from 
comphcated, and the determining requi- 
site of a location was a living stream of 



yd THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

water as supply to the mash-vat, In which 
the crushed corn or rye was fermented. 
The furnace fixtures for boiUng the mass 
were of plain construction, but the work- 
manship of the worm was generally elab- 
orate. The spirit of the grain, which en- 
tered its spiral length as vapor, was con- 
densed to liquid form before its issuance. 
This pure product of the still was in 
almost universal use, the decanter 
usually appearing on the mantel above 
the fire-place. On public occasions it 
flowed without stint, and no general im- 
provement or private enterprise was at- 
tempted without a liberal supply. 

THE ANTIQUITIES. 

The Antiquities of Central New York 
belong not to the early days of occu- 
pancy by this race, nor yet to the barbaric 
ages of its predecessor, but arise from 
conditions of a time so shrouded by the 
past as to be beyond the ken of Indian 
tradition. When white men first began 
settlement, a chain of ancient fortifica- 
tions appeared to extend from the lower 
end of Lake Ontario to the southwest- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 7/ 

ward, all occupying commanding posi- 
tions, and oftentimes large areas. They 
are supposed to be the work of that 
mysterious people, the Mound Builders. 
The French probably discovered and 
took possession of these constructions, 
as their arms are found above weapons 
of primitive years. 

The site of a fortification near the foot 
of Owasco Lake, is now known as Fort 
Hill, and occupied by a modern ceme- 
tery. Long after its builders had aban- 
doned the locality, it was the seat of a 
village of the Cayugas, named by them 
Osco. This was the birthplace of the 
noted Indian chief, Logan, who after the 
murder of his family by the whites, be- 
came from a friend, an implacable foe, 
and was killed in 1780. An ancient work 
on the east slope of Cayuga Lake near 
Aurora, embraced with its embankments 
about twenty acres upon a hill between 
two ravines. Traces of occupation in 
prehistoric times are observable about 
the foot of Seneca and Canandaigua 
Lakes, in trench enclosures and similar 
structures for defense. 



yS THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

A mound or fortification of an ellipti- 
cal form, was found by the pioneers, lo- 
cated on the dividing ridge between 
Lakes Seneca and Cayuga, near the 
south line of the present town of Ovid. 
The embankment, broken in its course 
by openings probably used for entrances, 
was about three feet in height, with a 
base several feet in width, and enclosed 
nearly three acres of land, on which as 
well as the construction itself, great for- 
est trees were growing in 1800. A set- 
tler soon afterwards built a house within 
the space, and in the course of subse- 
quent excavations, the teeth and large 
bones of several skeletons, pieces of a 
coarse kind of pottery, ornamental pipes 
and other relics of like character were 
unearthed. 

Along the Chemung near Elmira, 
clothed like the surroundings by a dense 
forest growth when discovered by the 
whites, the remains of a fortification are 
most advantageously located to resist at- 
tacks of enemies. On one side is the 
river, on the other a deep ravine, and 
in the rear extends an embankment two 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 79 

hundred feet in length, fourteen feet in 
width and over three feet in height. An 
earth-work on the summit of Bluff Point 
embraced several acres in its low ridges, 
which were some eight feet in width, and 
faced along the sides with flat stones. 
Circular mounds appear about Lakes 
Lamoka and Waneta, and on the inter- 
vale at the entrance to Havana Glen, may 
be traced with other artificial formations 
of earth, one of triangular form. 

THE LANDMARKS. 

The Landmarks of the lakes were tow- 
ering trees and other well defined nat- 
ural objects, or mystic spots memorial 
of the deeds of a departed race, which 
left euphonious names upon the waters 
and about their shores. The highlands 
overlooking Seneca Lake from the 
southward, were known as Ta-de-vigh- 
ro-no; Bluff Point, the promontory sep- 
arating the east and west branches of 
Lake Keuka, as O-go-ya-ga; Bare Hill 
on Canandaigua Lake, the legendary 
place of origin of the Senecas, as Ge- 
nun-de-wah. The most distinguishing 



8o THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

feature of the west shore of Cayuga 
Lake, retains the full significance of its 
fame as "The great waterfall of the 
woods," in its Indian appellation of 
Taughannock Falls. 

The Big Tree under whose boughs the 
Indian treaty of 1797 occurred, was an 
immense elm that stood on the banks of 
the Genesee, visible for miles along the 
"pleasant valley," as the name of the 
river signifies. The traditionary elm at 
the head of Seneca Lake was some four 
feet in diameter at base, and bore its crest 
proudly above its fellows. It marked 
the southwest corner of the Military 
Tract, and later the division of Steuben 
and Tompkins counties on the north 
line of Chemung. In a storm of wind 
and rain, July 15th, 1890, this tree was 
laid prostrate, when its trunk was found 
to be a mere shell through decay of heart 
from great age. Gigantic elms and wal- 
nuts cast their shade over corn-growths 
of the intervales in Indian days. 

The Painted Post at the confluence of 
the Tioga and Conhocton Rivers, was a 
noted landmark in the annals of settle- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 8l 

ment and in the history of Indian affairs 
long before. There are various tradi- 
tions as to its origin, one stating that it 
marked the grave of Captain Montour, 
a son of Queen Catharine, and who 
there died of wounds received at the 
Battle of Newtown; another, that it was 
a monument of great antiquity, from 
time to time renewed, and originally 
erected to commemorate the death of 
some celebrated war-chief, whose name 
and deeds were long forgotten. The 
whites in after years placed an iron rep- 
resentation of a warrior on the spot, and 
in its stead, in 1894, reared a granite 
shaft crowned by the bronze figure of an 
Indian. 

The Old Castle, the designation of the 
grounds near the site of Kanadaseaga 
where the Senecas laid their dead away, 
was covered by an Indian orchard, and 
the remains were undisturbed by the 
whites because of a stipulation to that 
efifect made in the treaty of purchase. 
For many years at plowing time, war- 
riors of the Iroquois came and watched 
this orchard to see that its sward re- 



S2 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

mained unturned by the husbandman. 
This mystic spot alone of the numerous 
burial places of the aborigines about the 
lakes, was not subject to despoliation 
when found, though amid the leaf-strewn 
mounds in many a forest glade, the con- 
quering race located the lone and mourn- 
ful graves of the early years. 

THE TRAVELERS. 

The Travelers through Central New 
York at the time of settlement were at- 
tracted as are the thousands of tourists 
of the present day, by the charms of 
scenery, yet unsurpassed, but then in 
primeval beauty. Few chronicled their 
observations, but of that number all were 
favorably impressed. One journal of 
travel, written in February, 1792, con- 
tains the following entry: "On the even- 
ing of the third days' journey from 
White stown, we were very agreeably 
surprised to find ourselves on the east 
side of the Seneca Lake, perfectly open 
and free from ice as in the month of 
June. This after having passed from 
New York over a country completely 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 83 

frozen, was a sight pleasing and inter- 
esting," 

A visitor to the lakes in the autumn 
of 1792, thus records of Cayuga and 
Seneca or Canadasega Lake, as it was 
then sometimes called: "Thirty-five 
miles from Onondaga Lake, I struck the 
Cayuga Lake. The road is tolerable for 
a new country, with but three houses 
upon it; the land excellent, and very 
heavy timbered. This lake is from 
thirty-five to forty miles long, about two 
miles wide, and abounds with fish. 
Twelve miles west of the Cayuga, with 
no inhabitant upon the road, is the Can- 
adasega Lake, the handsomest piece of 
water I ever beheld. Upon a pretty 
slope stands a town called Geneva, which 
consists of about twenty log-houses, 
three or four frame buildings, and as 
many idle persons as can live in them." 

Louis Philippe, King of the FrencJi 
from 1830 until his flight to England in 
1848, where his death occurred two years 
later, during the ascendancy to power of 
Napoleon Bonaparte was a wanderer in 
America. Li 1797, accompanied by his 



84 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

two younger brothers, he journeyed from 
Buffalo to Canandaigua and thence to 
Geneva. SaiHng in the sloop over Sen- 
eca to Catharine's Town, the party 
walked to Newtown, and after a ten 
days' sojourn, proceeded down the Che- 
mung and Susquehanna Rivers upon an 
ark. The royal visitors passed a night 
with Peter Pitts, a land-owner at the 
foot of Honeoye Lake; were entertained 
at Canandaigua by Thomas Morris; at 
Catharine's Town by George Mills, and 
at Ne\\i:own by Henry Tower and others. 
Alexander Wilson, author of "Amer- 
ican Ornithology," in the autumn of 
1804, with two companions made a pe- 
destrian trip to the lakes. The party 
proceeded from Philadelphia overland to 
the Susquehanna; thence up its course 
and that of the Chemung to Newtown; 
down Catharine Valley and the east 
shore of Seneca Lake to near Lodi, 
where they crossed over to Cayuga 
Lake, and taking skiff followed the 
waters to Lake Ontario. The author 
embodied his experiences in a poem en- 
titled 'The Foresters," and in the foot- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 85 

notes to that portion devoted to Seneca 
Lake scenery, mentioned the waterfalls, 
the towering walnuts, the eagles and 
snow-white storks, and the many im- 
pressions of marine shells in the rocks 
of the shore. 

THE MILITIA. 

The Militia of the State in the early 
days included ah able-bodied citizens 
between the ages of eighteen and forty- 
five years, not exempt by law from mili- 
tary duty, and the training consequent 
upon the organization rendered it pos- 
sil^le at all times for the government to 
call effective troops to its support should 
the exigency arise. The Constitution of 
1777, ordained that a proper magazine 
of warlike stores, proportionate to the 
number of inhabitants, should be estab- 
lished in every county, but this provision 
v.as never fully carried out, although 
arsenals were located for each division 
of the militia and armories provided for 
each regiment. 

The regiments were composed of eight 
companies, including one of artillery, 



86 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

which assembled for drill in their respec- 
tive localities some three times a year. 
Thus every village was the scene of mar- 
tial demonstrations, upon the expanse 
of green extending before the portals of 
the old-time taverns, and incidents of 
training days yet enter largely into their 
tales of tradition. Each militia-man was 
required to have his accoutrements in 
order, and as a general thing all took 
pride in possessing muskets which could 
be relied upon as exponents of good 
marksmanship. The members of a 
company of cavalry were invariably 
skillful riders, well-mounted on picked 
horses of mettle and endurance. 

The ordnance furnished by the State 
to the artillery companies consisted gen- 
erally of guns throwing a six-pound ball, 
and to-day these cannons may be found 
at the principal centers of population, 
mute reminders of by-gone evolutions of 
the field, save when their voices awaken 
the echoes on occasions of special or 
national celebration. In modern war- 
fare these reHcs of the past would be of 
little avail, and probably will never again 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 8/ 

be required for use in army ranks. Sev- 
eral kegs of ammunition were furnished 
yearly by the government to each com- 
pany for practice purposes, and in after 
ages, from many a clayey bank, once 
behind a target, rusty projectiles may be 
dug greatly to the interest of anti- 
quarians. 

General training was a gala day to the 
community, causing an assemblage of all 
from far and near, and awakening a feel- 
ing of fraternity by extending the gen- 
eral acquaintance of individuals. The 
companies of a regiment gathered on the 
occasion, each vying with the other in 
the completeness of equipment and the 
proficiency of drill. The of^cers in full 
regimentals presided over the military 
maneuvers, v/hile the strains of martial 
music sounded and the cannon boomed, 
reminding the aged present, of Revolu- 
tionary days, and arousing in the youth 
in attendance, resolves to conserve the 
liberties then won. These events of pa- 
triotic import occurred annually in the 
autumn months, and continued until the 
close of 1845. 



88 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

THE SCHOOLS. 

The Schools of the settlements were 
early established and advanced with the 
development of the general system of 
the commonwealth. At the first meet- 
ing of the State Legislature in 1787, a 
law was passed providing for the ap- 
pointment of the Regents of the Univer- 
sity, and in 1789, certain portions of the 
public lands were appropriated for school 
and gospel purposes. In 1793, the Re- 
gents recommended the establishment of 
common schools, and two years later 
the first of the many laws for their en- 
couragement went into effect. Prominent 
among the advocates of education at that 
time was Ezra L'Hommedieu of the 
State Senate, owner of a tract of land at 
the head of Seneca Lake. 

The educational institutions of the 
county-seats of the lakes, Vvcre first estab- 
lished as follows: Canandaigua Acad- 
emy, March 4th, 1795; Auburn Acad- 
emy, February 14th, 181 5; Ithaca Acad- 
emy, March 24th, 1823; Ovid Academy, 
April 13th, 1826; Geneseo Academy, 
March loth, 1827; Owego Academy, 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 89 

April i6th, 1828; Penn Yan Academy, 
April 17th, 1828; Lyons Academy, 
March 29th, 1837; Elmira Academy, 
March 31st, 1840; Waterloo Academy, 
April nth, 1842; Bath Union School, 
July 8th, 1846; Corning Union School, 
April 13th, 1859; Watkins Union School, 
April 3rd, 1863. Other early incorpora- 
tions were: Cayuga Academy at Au- 
rora, March 23rd, 1801 ; Geneva Acad- 
emy, March 29th, 181 3; Prattsburgh 
Academy, February 23rd, 1824; Skan- 
eateles Academy, April 14th, 1829; Avon 
Academy, April 13th, 1836; Seneca Falls 
Academy, April 27th, 1837. 

The denominational schools date from 
April 14th, 1820, when the Auburn Theo- 
logical Seminary, a Presbyterian insti- 
tution, was chartered. The Genesee 
Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, was estab- 
lished by the Methodists, April 30th, 
1833, and merged in Genesee Col- 
lege February 27th, 1849. Hobart Col- 
lege at Geneva, in control of the Episco- 
pals, on April loth, 1852, succeeded Gen- 
eva College, chartered April 5th, 1824, 
in which was merged Geneva Academy. 



90 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

Starkey Seminary on the west shore of 
Seneca Lake, was incorporated by the 
Christians, February 25th, 1848. The 
Elmira Female College was founded by 
the Presbyterians, April 13th, 1855. The 
charter of Cook Academy at Havana, 
was secured by the Baptists in August, 
1872. The Free Baptists laid the corner- 
stone of Lake Keuka College, August 
2 1 St, 1888. 

One Normal School is included in the 
seats of learning along the route of the 
Military Expedition — at Geneseo, char- 
tered March 29th, 1867. Two colleges 
were incorporated, and extensive struc- 
tures erected, which are now occupied 
by other institutions. The People's Col- 
lege was authorized, April I2tli, 1853, 
and the New York State Agricultural 
College at Ovid, April 15th, 1853. The 
Cook Academy succeeded to the site of 
the former, and the Willard Asylum to 
the latter. Through the enterprise of 
Charles Cook, the People's College was 
located on a farm of two hundred acres 
at Havana, January 8th, 1857, but sub- 
sequent failure to fulfill statutory require- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 9 1 

ments resulted in a loss of the land- 
grant, which made possible the great- 
ness of Cornell University. 

THE INSTITUTIONS. 

The Institutions established by the 
State in Central New York, are of the 
classes, educational, charitable and cor- 
rective, which evidence the cosmopolitan 
character and diversity of interests, to 
which the old domain of the Iroquois 
has attained. They were foundeJl on lib- 
eral lines, and date from 1816, when the 
building of Auburn Prison was com- 
menced. It was completed in 1819, at a 
cost of $300,000, exclusive of the labor 
of convicts. The last located about the 
lakes, was through act of June 26th, 
1880, which was the initial event in the 
establishment of the Agricultural Ex- 
periment Station at Geneva. 

Cornell University which overlooks 
Cayuga Lake at Ithaca, was chartered 
April 27th, 1865, through the enterprise 
of Ezra Cornell, but is more a monu- 
ment of public than private liberality. 
In 1862, Congress passed an act grant- 



02 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

ing to the States which should pro- 
vide schools for the promotion of Agri- 
culture and the mechanic arts, thirty- 
thousand acres of public lands for each 
senator and representative. This fund 
was evidently intended to aid many es- 
tabhshments of New York, but the entire 
proceeds of the State's share, amount- 
ing to nine hundred and ninety thousand 
acres, became of benefit to the Univer- 
sity, upon compliance with the conditions 
of the legislative enactment of incor- 
poration. 

The State Hospital for the Insane, 
located on the eastern shore of Seneca 
Lake at the site of the old New York 
State agricultural college and farm, 
ranks as the leading institution of its 
kind. It had its inception in an act 
passed April 8th, 1865, authorizing the 
establishment of the Willard Asylum for 
the Insane. An act to establish and 
maintain an institution for the relief of 
indigent and disabled soldiers and sailors 
of the State of New York, was passed 
June 3rd, 1872. Bath was chosen as the 
place of location of the Home; the build- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 93 

ings were commenced in 1878, and 
opened for the reception of inmates on 
Christmas day, 1879. 

The New York State Reformatory 
at Elmira, commands from its wall- 
environed heights, a beautiful view of 
the valley-ways up which the troops of 
the Military Expedition marched in pur- 
suit of the Iroquois. To the northward 
extends the vale down which the defeated 
warriors trailed, and to the southward, 
almost within the shadow of the build- 
ings, rest the dead from the ranks of the 
Confederate prisoners, confined along 
the Chemung during the Civil War. The 
site was selected in pursuance of an act 
authorizing the appointment of commis- 
sioners to locate a State Penitentiary or 
Industrial Reformatory, passed April 
29th, 1869. 

THE RELIGION. 

The Religion of the Iroquois taught 
the return of thanks for all bounties re- 
ceived from the Great Spirit, who in 
their worship was addressed by particu- 
lar speakers, followed by feasting, and 



94 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

closing with dancing and other recrea- 
tions. While prayer was offered, the 
dust of tobacco sprinkled on live coals 
of fire, arose as incense with the sup- 
plications. Their great religious festivals 
were held semi-annually, when the con- 
vocations were general, and the cele- 
brations of thanksgiving continued from 
three to six days. With them, "The 
groves were God's first temples,'' and 
the budding leaf, the sprouting plant, 
the ripening grain had deepest signifi- 
cance of immortality. 

The Jesuits at an early day founded 
missions in the villages of the Five Na- 
tions, having attained so extended a 
knowledge of the territory of the lakes 
as to map its main features in 1664, but 
the constant aggressions and unceasing 
wars of the whites, rendered of little avail 
the efforts of the missionaries to incul- 
cate the doctrines of peace. Father Isaac 
Jogues, in 1642, was the pioneer priest 
in the Onondaga country, but he and 
many of the sixty as devoted souls, who 
in the succeeding hundred years labored 
to uphold the cross in the wilderness, 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 95 

met death at the hands of the Iroquois, 
who denominated members of the clergy 
as "black coats," when they came to re- 
gard them with distrust as agents of a 
rapacious race. 

The preachers of the Protestant de- 
nominations in later years too often but 
prepared the way for the machinations of 
the speculators, who were known as. 
''gamblers" among the despoiled deni- 
zens of the forest. In 1765, the Rev. 
Samuel Kirkland came on a mission to 
the Indians at Kanadaseaga, and was 
revered by them for his good works, yet 
as commissioner of the State of Massa- 
chusetts, he conducted the treaty of 1788, 
which was the beginning of the end of 
the land-titles of the Six Nations. It was 
not long after this event, that all the 
sects of civilization had representative 
congregations in the settlements, endeav- 
oring to promote the welfare of commu- 
nity, and the societies then organized are 
still flourishing. 

The vagaries of religious belief have 
had striking illustrations in Central New 
York, not however to prosper long at 



96 THE LAKE COUNTRi^. 

the places of inception. The Friends 
Avhose deeds about Lake Keuka Outlet 
are now ancient annals, had faith that 
Jemima Wilkinson was controlled by the 
Divine Spirit in propagating the tenet 
that celibacy was indispensable to a pure 
life. Mormon Hill near the north line 
of Ontario county, is the pretended place 
of discovery by Joseph Smith in 1827, of 
the golden plates of the Book of Mor- 
mon, and Brigham Young, after living 
for a time west of the head of Seneca 
Lake, resided long at Canandaigua. The 
Oneida Community, established by John 
H. Noyes in 1847, held all things in com- 
mon up to 1879, when their peculiar 
family relations were abandoned. 

THE FOLK-LORE. 

The Folk-lore of the forest-environed 
homes was a natural result of lives, 
isolated and under the weird spell of the 
vv'ilderness. Though the country of the 
lakes was new to the settlers, it was old 
in its traditions of a mysterious past. The 
lace which had departed left no monu- 
ments to mark the period of its power, 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 97 

but the influence of its occupancy was 
over all, and thus under conducive con- 
ditions the superstitions of an older time, 
throve even more vigorously than in the 
lands from w^hich they had been trans- 
planted. Upon the border-land of bar- 
barism and civilization, the characteris- 
tics of the past and present came in con- 
tact and commingled. 

Mystic spots v^ere many in the lore of 
the Iroquois, who would desert village 
sites if believing that evil influences were 
there dominant, and the localities thus 
under a ban were often regarded as 
eerie places by the whites. The Indians' 
observance of the phases of the moon; 
their forest signs governing seed-time of 
maize; their note of natural phenomena, 
and rare wood-craft, became lines of 
guidance with many of the pioneers. 
Thus survive still on the farmsteads, say- 
ings that rain will fall when the dip of 
the crescent moon is such that the 
powder-horn of the hunter may be hung 
thereon while he rests from the chase, 
and corn-planting time is at hand when 
white-oak leaves resemble feet of squir- 
rels in size of growth. 



98 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

Witchcraft extended its enchantments 
over the dreamers of both races, and the 
silver bullet, like the charmed arrow, was 
prepared in secret for the were-wolfs 
heart. The spectres of the dead appeared 
alike to the Iroquois and the credulous 
settlers, and many a hill and hollow bore 
the prefix of ''ghost," to its appellation 
in the olden days. Then also, in accord- 
ance with the folk-lore of the whites, oc- 
casionally occurred the curious custom 
of "Telling the bees," on the death of a 
member of the household. Those who 
observed the usage, tapped gently on 
each hive and whispered of the dead, in 
order that the little honeymakers might 
not forsake their abode, because of hav- 
ing to ascertain the fact themselves. 

The superstition of the vampire, that 
horror of the grave which was supposed 
to harbor with the dead yet derive its 
sustenance from the living, had one illus- 
tration at least about Seneca Lake. 
Down the western shore not many miles 
from its head, in the early years the 
corpse of a young woman was exhumed, 
and the heart and other vital parts com- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 99 

mitted to the flames. The grewsome tale 
comports in a remarkable manner with 
the general sayings in regard to vam- 
pires. Of several sisters, all in succes- 
sion had wasted away, until but one re- 
mained and she was ill. Though in the 
grave for many months, the burned por- 
tions of the body were fresh in appear- 
ance. The living sister, undoubtedly 
from mental relief, recovered her health 
after the event. 

THE TREASURE. 

The Treasure of the earth was an ob- 
ject of unceasing quest by many settlers 
of more adventurous spirit than their fel- 
lows, for few of the localities of the lakes 
were devoid of legends of lead and sil- 
ver mines known to the Indians but un- 
discovered by the whites. This idea of 
unearthed ore of value was not confined 
to individuals, but engaged the thoughts 
of entire communities, and even ex- 
tended its influence to the halls of legis- 
lation, for in many of the early sales of 
land the gold and silver mines were re- 
served by the State. This provision in- 



ICXD THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

dicative of wide-spread belief in mining 
possibilities, dated from Colonial days, 
and was a feature of all patents then 
granted. 

The lead-mine mystery appears to 
have been given greater credence than 
other tales of treasure-trove, for from 
the shores of Ontario to the banks of the 
Chemung and Susquehanna, the rock- 
walled tributaries of the lakes and 
rivers were explored by the pioneers in- 
tent on finding the mystically-marked 
boulders, that were said to bar the en- 
trances to caverns rich with deposits of 
metal. Indian lore located treasure at 
an elbow of a stream of Seneca Lake, 
and settlers regarded the tradition 
worthy of consideration, as at angles of 
ravines rock-fissures most abound; but 
all search for mines westward of Oneida 
Lake have been unavailing, while to the 
eastward veins of ore appear from the 
Hudson to the Mohawk, the Delaware 
to the St. Lawrence. 

The Iroquois in roving bands visited 
at intervals their old-time haunts, for 
many years after the remnant of their 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. lOI 

race had been assigned to reservations. 
Silently and unexpectedly to- the pio- 
neers they came, as spirits of the past, 
and tarried but a brief period along the 
waters before departure. No cabin home, 
lone in the woodland depths, was mo- 
lested on these occasions, and no reason 
could be conjectured for such visitations, 
save to obtain a portion of the treasure, 
forever hidden by forest-craft from the 
whites. There are authentic statements 
to the effect that settlers who had granted 
favors to the Indians were taken to their 
rendezvous, but in the dead of night and 
by so devious a route they could not find 
the way by day. 

Long after the last Iroquois had left 
his ancestral trails, the quest continued, 
and to-day those versed in wood-lore 
may trace in many a vale, the thicket- 
over-grown excavations or note upon the 
shore-skirting cliffs the drill-indentations 
of the fortune hunters. Geologists have 
pronounced against the probability of 
finding lead and silver ores in paying 
quantities in the region of the lakes, but 
out-croppings are known to exist, and 



102 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

what the revelations of the future will be 
none may say. The secrets of the rocks 
are not ascertained by cursory examina- 
tions; only exhaustive investigations will 
disclose their treasure, which is evi- 
denced in as great degree at present as 
was the great salt bed beneath the lakes 
a score of years ago. 

THE SALT-SPRINGS. 

The Salt-springs were found through- 
out the State as settlement progressed; 
the brine varying in degree of satura- 
tion, from the 70° of the outflow at On- 
ondaga to the brackish waters known as 
"deer licks." The existence of these 
springs and others of a mineral nature 
nov/ famous for their medicinal qualities, 
was known to the Indians, and in most 
cases only discovered through chance by 
the whites. Their locations were not 
willingly revealed by the discomfited 
race, and doubtless brine springs yet re- 
main unknown. The facts are well 
authenticated, that the Iroquois would 
borrow kettles of the settlers about the 
heads of Seneca and Cayuga Lakes, and 
return them filled with salt. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. IO3 

The journal of Father Lallemant, who 
visited the region in 1645, niakes the 
first mention in history of the salt 
springs of Onondaga Lake. Their value 
was ascertained during the Colonial 
period; in the treaty with the Six Na- 
tions they were to be jointly used by 
the whites and Indians forever, and the 
State reserved for salt purposes the ter- 
ritory surrounding. The first salt there 
produced by settlers, was made in 1789, 
by Asa Danforth and Comfort Tyler in 
a kettle suspended from a pole upheld 
by crotched sticks. The first caldron 
kettle with arch, was used by James Van 
Vleck in 1793, and solar works were con- 
structed in 1 82 1. The manufacture of 
salt was begun to the northward of 
Cayuga Lake in 1798, and later at other 
points in Western New York. 

The boring of wells on the sites of 
springs of weak brine in the hopes of 
increasing the supply and saturation, was 
commenced at an early date, but with 
the tools of the time, the depths attained 
hardly exceeded two hundred feet, and 
the efforts generally ended in disappoint- 



I04 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

ment. After the discovery of the petro- 
leum deposits of Pennsylvania in 1859, 
drilling was resumed in this State, but 
in search of oil. With the improved 
appliances it was possible to sink wells 
more than one thousand feet within the 
earth, and thus the salt field of Central 
and Western New York was discovered. 
Many of the borings of this period are 
either valuable wells of mineral water, 
or costly exponents of failure termed 
"dry holes." 

The Lake Country of which Seneca 
is the geographical center, in its limits 
is nearly conterminous with the salt 
tract of the State. From westward of 
the Genesee, eastward to the section 
south of Oneida Lake, the drills after 
passing through the rocks of shale and 
limestone, have penetrated deeply into 
rock-salt. This bed is now known to be 
the source of the springs of Onondaga; 
its northern boundary appearing to be 
about on a line with the foot of the lakes, 
while its extent to the southward is not 
defined. In its central portion it lies 
less than fifteen hundred feet below tide. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. I05 

The works of the Glen Salt Company, 
one mile down the west shore of Seneca 
Lake, were completed in 1894, the last 
of twenty-five blocks of the field estab- 
lished since 1880. 

THE ROCKS. 

The Rocks of Western New York, 
with the exception of the saline deposit, 
contain mineral wealth neither of great 
value nor extensive dissemination. The 
rock-formations preclude the existence 
of the precious metals as well as the 
baser ores. These include all the strata 
lying between the primary rocks and the 
coal measures of Pennsylvania, which 
dip toward the south and overlie each 
other on a general level from west to 
east, though bent, far in the distance of 
the latter direction. The strata are dis- 
tinguished mainly by the fossils which 
they contain, and vary in thickness from 
a few inches to many feet. 

The whole country from the shores of 
Ontario to the altitude of the Alle- 
ghanies, rises in a series of terraces, 
bounded at their northern edges by the 



I06 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

out-croppings of the principal rock 
groups. Through these terraces the 
beds of the lakes have been riven, which 
renders the slopes about their outlets of 
level aspect, while hills that approach in 
elevation the heights of mountains, en- 
compass their heads. Lake Ontario in 
its whole width from the Genesee River 
northward, is excavated in the lower 
part of the Medina Sandstone, the 
Oneida Conglomerate and Gray Sand- 
stone, and the Hudson River Group. Its 
waters from a surface of 232 feet above 
tide, extend to a depth of 368 feet below 
sea-level. 

The Hudson River Group that limits 
the depth of bed of Ontario, is above the 
Uitica Slate; and the Trenton and Black 
River Limestones, the Calciferous Sand- 
rock and the Potsdam Sandstone, lead 
down to the Granite and Gneiss of the 
primary rocks. The Medina Sandstone 
forms the blufifs of the southern shore 
of Lake Ontario, and from this forma- 
tion upwards and southward, the rocks 
consist principally of a series of lime- 
stones, shales and sandstones, each pass- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. lO/ 

ing iiiio the other by gradation, or with 
the Hne of separation distinctly marked. 
The geographical appellations of those 
points where the members of a rock- 
group display greatest development, 
were adopted as their geological desig- 
nations. 

The shores of Seneca from their cen- 
tral location and north and south exten- 
sion, well present the record of the 
rocks. The formations in their order 
from Ontario to the foot of the lake are 
the Medina Sandstone, the Clinton and 
the Niagara Groups, and the Onondaga 
Salt Group. The Corniferous Limestone 
and Marcellus Shale have out-croppings 
of fifty feet each, along the Seneca; and 
above, the Hamilton Group extends for 
hundreds of feet. Ten feet of Tully 
Limestone separates the Hamilton shales 
from the Genesee Slate, 150 feet in thick- 
ness. Then ensues the Portage Group 
for 1,000 feet, and above it, the Che- 
mung Group rises in the rock-ribbed 
hills, to the Old Red Sandstone and the 
Conglomerate of the Carboniferous sys- 
tem. 



I08 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

THE STREAMS. 

The Streams mingle with the currents 
of the lakes, either through watercourses 
of alluvial banks or ravines that cut deep 
into the rock-walls of the shores. The 
inlet and the outlet waters generally flow 
gently through valley and plain, and 
over gravelly beds, but the outflows of 
Lakes Keuka and Skaneateles are 
through rocky channels; the former in 
its descent to Seneca, a distance of seven 
miles, falling 270 feet, and the latter de- 
scending 250 feet in five miles. Seneca 
River is the main drainage stream of the 
Lake Country, receiving its waters from 
Canandaigua eastward to Oneida Lake, 
where it assumes the name of Oswego 
River. 

The streams coursing from the height 
of land, southward to the Chemung and 
Susquehanna, invariably rise in upland 
vales between the heads of the lakes, and 
at an elevation of hundreds of feet above 
their surface waters. Lakelets are fre- 
quently the feeders of these water- 
courses, which in their channels, no- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. IO9 

where show a rocky bed in flow from 
source to river. This is in substantia- 
tion of the theory, that the lake-beds of 
Central New York are in true rock- 
fissures of the earth, resulting from some 
great convulsion of the past, which not 
only rent asunder the vast crevasses of 
the valleys, but caused as well the sec- 
ondary rifts of the uplands. 

The lakes receive many tributaries 
from the uplands, which from hill- 
environed springs wind through quiet 
dales, to foam through rapids and over 
cascades in rock-walled courses as they 
near the end. Should the stream thread 
an old-time rock-fissure in the latter part 
of its flow, the wearing action of its 
waters during the ages past, has formed 
a glen of curve and pool and tranquil 
reach. Such are the characteristics of 
Watkins and Havana Glens. Streams 
which have wrought their own channels, 
course through gorges, not deep but 
broad and with angles and abrupt turns, 
as do Big Stream and Hector Falls 
Creek on Seneca, and Fall and Taughan- 
nock Creeks on Cayuga. 



no THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

The waterfalls of the streams are num- 
erous, and form the most picturesque 
features of the landscapes of the lakes. 
In the course from upland to valley, the 
water-ilow encountering rocks of differ- 
ent degrees of hardness, has worn them 
irregularly, the soft shales forming a 
declining surface, while the compact 
strata have retained their forms. To this 
action is due the fact, that the locations 
of the waterfalls are either at the face of 
the cliffs or worn deeply into the bluffs. 
Hector and Montour Falls on Seneca, 
and Fall Creek Falls on Cayuga, are 
illustrations of the former condition, 
while the latter is evidenced by Lodi and 
Glenora Falls on Seneca Lake, and 
Taughannock Falls on Cayuga Lake. 

THE WATER-WAYS. 

The Water-ways were the avenues 
along which coursed the tide of civiliza- 
tion, and vantage grounds that had been 
well-chosen as places of occupancy by 
the Iroquois, were appropriated with- 
out question by the settlers. The streams 
which from their forest shrouded sources 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. Ill 

perennially flowed, turned many mills on 
sites now silent, or marked by quiet ham- 
lets. Where commercial advantages 
aided the growth of towns, their upbuild- 
ing was gradual in most instances, but 
with some the efforts of great land- 
owners effected a speedy development, 
while others after flourishing for a time, 
fell slowly into inevitable decadence. 

This waning prosperity was the nat- 
ural result of changed conditions, prin- 
cipally the exhaustion of forest re- 
sources. Great centers of enterprise are 
only possible at considerable distances 
from each other, and in the settlement of 
a country the final supremacy in the case 
of rival towns rests on the fact of more 
favorable location. On the outlet of 
Lakes Lamoka and Waneta, midway be- 
tween the heads of Lakes Keuka and 
Seneca, in 1793, Frederick Bartles of 
New Jersey, laid out a village, which he 
named Frederick Town. He built saw 
and grist mills, and in May, 1798, 
100,000 feet of boards were floated from 
this point to Baltimore, an evidence of 
the immense volume of business there 



112 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

transacted while lasted woodland prod- 
ucts. 

The idea that the site of Watkins was 
to be the location of a place of commer- 
cial importance, because at the head of 
Seneca Lake, was doubtless entertained 
by John W. Watkins, who began im- 
provements soon after his great land 
purchase, and also an expectation of 
Samuel Watkins, as in no other town in 
Western New York are the streets lo- 
cated with greater regularity or with 
more metropolitan features of length 
and breadth. The village now includes 
what was known as Savoy, founded on 
the w^estern slope of Seneca by Isaac O. 
Leake, and three miles dovs^n the eastern 
shore of the lake, at Hector Falls, John 
B. and Samuel S. Seeley once conducted 
a thriving business, having grist and full- 
ing mills, a still-house and a foundry, an 
inn and store, of which foundation stones 
alone remain. 

It was an era when water carriage 
was the only available means of moving 
the vast bulk of commodity of a sectioYi 
of diversified products, continually ex- 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. II3 

panding in area of cultivation. The 
trend of commercial currents, at first ex- 
clusively to the southward, was turned 
eastward as well, by the improvements 
Vv'hich resulted in the connection of the 
Mohawk and Oswego River systems by 
canal, in 1796. The flow in the latter 
direction was augmented by the open- 
ing of the Erie Canal in 1825; the Ca- 
yuga and Seneca Canal in 1828, and the 
Crooked Lake and Chemung Canals in 
1833. One scheme was never realized — 
the building of a ship canal from the 
lakes to Sodus Bay, along the shores of 
which a city was platted in the early 
days. 

THE STEAMBOATS. 

The Steamboats first appeared upon 
the waters of the Lake Country during 
the '20's, but incorporated companies 
were concerned in navigation afifairs on 
but three of the lakes, Cayuga, Seneca 
and Keuka. There were no olden-day 
organizations to build steamboats on 
Canandaigua, Skaneateles or the smaller 
lakes, but vessels propelled by steam 



114 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

early ploughed their waves. For many 
years after settlement, sailing craft were 
numerous as freighters. A sloop was 
launched on Seneca at Geneva, as early 
as 1796, to run as a packet to the head 
of the lake, and a schooner began 
trading trips on Lake Keuka shortly 
after 1800. 

The Cayuga Steam Boat Company, of 
which David Woodcock was President 
and Oliver Phelps, James Pumpelly, 
James Benjamin and Lewis Looker, 
Directors, built at Ithaca the steamboat 
"Enterprise," which made her first trip 
on June 7th, 1820. One hundred and 
fifty passengers were aboard, and it took 
from 10 a. m. till 6 p. m. to reach Ca- 
yuga Bridge, where a great concourse of 
people, martial music and the roar of 
cannon greeted the arrival. Elijah H. 
Goodwin was in command. The Ca- 
yuga Lake and Inlet Steamboat Com- 
pany was incorporated February 25th, 
1828, with a capital of $20,000. Head- 
quarters were at Ithaca, and the Direc- 
tors were Francis A. Bloodgood, Rich- 
ard V. DeWitt, Elijah H. Goodwin, 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. II5 

Alvah Beebe and S. DeWitt Bloodgood. 

The Seneca Lake Steamboat Company 
was formed by legislative enactment, 
April 6th, 1825. Its incorporators were 
Samuel Watkins, Henry Dwight, Sam- 
uel Colt, Joseph Fellows, James Rees, 
Nicholas Ayrault and associates. Head- 
quarters were at Geneva, and the capital 
stock $20,000. The first steamboat on 
Seneca Lake, the "Seneca Chief," began 
running three years after this event, but 
its proprietors were J. B. and R. Rum- 
ney. The boat first landed at the head 
of the lake, July 4th, 1828, amid the 
shouts of a multitude, volleys of mus- 
ketry and the boom of cannon. Captain 
E. Miner was in command, and it had 
required over five hours' time to make 
the distance from Geneva. 

The Crooked Lake Steamboat Com- 
pany with a capital stock of $5,000, and 
headquarters at Bath, was organized 
April i8th, 1826, by Dugald Cameron, 
John Magee, WiUiam Hastings, Samuel 
S. Ellsworth and Abraham Wagener. It 
is not known however, that through this 
organization was built the first steam- 



Il6 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

boat of Lake Keuka, which was known 
as the "Keuka," and in the year 1837 
pUed between Hammondsport and Penn 
Yan, with Joseph Lewis as Captain. The 
first steamboat of Canandaigua Lake 
was launched at its foot in 1827. It was 
in command of Isaac Parrish, and called 
the *'Lady of the Lake." Skaneateles 
Lake was first sailed by a steamboat in 
1831; the ''Independence," commanded 
by Captain Wells. 

THE FERRIES. 

The Ferries of the lakes were estab- 
lished some score of years after the in- 
itiatory enterprises of the kind, at Ca- 
yuga Lake Outlet and at the Genesee 
River. The former was the first ferry 
in Central New York, and run under the 
proprietorship of John Harris, the pio- 
neer of that locality, while the latter was 
located soon afterwards, yet in 1789, by 
Gilbert R. Berry, an early settler on the 
river to the west of the site of Avon. 
After the finding of the low-water fords 
and before the construction of bridges, 
ferries came into general use upon the 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. II/ 

streams, many of which were navigable 
to the hght craft of the times, and in con- 
sequence declared by legislative enact- 
ment to be public highways. 

The valley lakes of Owasco, Skane- 
ateles, Canandaigua and Crooked or 
Keuka, as it is known at present, are 
narrow in their courses like Seneca and 
Cayuga, but of less than half as great 
lengths, and to this configuration is 
doubtless due the fact that but one of 
them, Lake Keuka, was ever crossed by 
a ferry chartered by the State. The route 
connected the eastern and western 
shores, and touched at the southern ex- 
tremity of Blufif Point, at one time the 
site of quite a village. April 2ist, 1818, 
Isaac Kingsbury was authorized to 
maintain the ferry; March 22nd, 1828, 
Hiram Gleason secured the charter for 
ten years, and April 12th, 1838, Francis 
Correll was granted a continuance for a 
similar term, the limit of the legal life 
of the privilege. 

The first ferry of Seneca Lake was 
maintained by John Goodwin, where the 
North Hector ferry ran till 1897. His 



Il8 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

charter extended for ten years from 
April 4th, 1820, but on April 17th, 1826, 
John Starkey was granted the route for 
fifteen years. May 2nd, 1845, ^^^ Fow- 
ler and Alfred Goodwin were authorized 
to continue this ferry for a similar term. 
April 15th, 1825, John Maynard, Ethan 
Watrous and William Howard were em- 
powered to conduct a ferry for twenty 
years, from ''Lancaster village in the 
county of Seneca to Dresden village in 
the county of Yates." April 3rd, 1829, 
Terah Carter acquired the right to keep 
a ferry for fifteen years, from Big Stream 
to Peach Orchard Point. At an early day, 
Miles Raplee and Charles Goff ran an 
unchartered ferry across the lake at Lodi 
Landing. 

The ferries of Cayuga Lake, other 
than those over outlet waters, date from 
April 17th, 1816, when was established 
the ferry, which for fourteen years from 
April 15th, 1825, was continued by 
James Kidder, Amos Goodwin, Mat- 
thew N. Tillotson and David Ogden, and 
for the same length of time from April 
5th, 1844, by Ira Almy and Horace C. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. II9 

Tracy. January 21st, 1826, James and 
Jacob Carr were authorized to keep a 
ferry at Union Springs; May i8th, 1836, 
Stephen Mosher for twelve years; De- 
cember 14th, 1847, Johi^ Carr for ten 
years; April 5th, 1853, Thomas Patten 
for ten years. February 25th, 1828, 
Samuel Griggs, Asa Foote and Ebenezer 
Goff were granted a ferry charter at 
Griggsport. April 24th, 1829, John 
McLallen acquired ferry privileges at 
Frog Point, but May 20th, 1836, Wil- 
liam Carman was accorded the rights, 
which by renewals were extended to 
1885. 

THE CANALS. 

The Canals, which in after years linked 
the lakes with the waters of adjacent 
rivers, were projected soon after settle- 
ment was well advanced, and until com- 
pletion their establishment was ably ad- 
vocated. The Western Inland Naviga- 
tion Company was incorporated March 
30th, 1792, with power to improve the 
channel of the Mohawk River and build 
canals to Lake Ontario and Seneca 



I20 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

Lake. The work was begun at Little 
Falls in 1793, and three years later boats 
passed through to Oneida Lake. The 
company gave up its rights west of that 
point in 1808, and in 1820, sold out to 
the State for $152,718.52. 

The Erie Canal was commenced at 
Rome July 4th, 181 7, and finished in 
October, 1825, at a cost of $7,143,789.86. 
As then constructed, it was 363 miles 
long, forty feet wide at top, twenty-eight 
at bottom, and four feet deep. The com- 
pletion of the work w^as celebrated by 
civic and military demonstrations from 
the lakes to the sea, and at New York 
City the ceremonies were especially im- 
posing, the day of the arrival of the first 
boat over its course, bearing Governor 
Clinton and other officials of the State. 
As this craft entered the canal at Buffalo, 
October 26th, the event was heralded by 
cannon arranged along the line, and in 
an hour and twenty minutes the signal 
passed to New York. 

The Cayuga and Seneca Canal for 
about half its course is formed by slack- 
water navigation upon the Seneca River. 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 121 

The descent from Geneva, its western, 
to Montezuma, its eastern terminus, is 
seventy-four feet. The Seneca Lock 
Navigation Company was incorporated 
April 6th, 1813, for the purpose of im- 
proving the outlet of Seneca and Cayuga 
Lakes, and the Cayuga and Seneca Canal 
Company was chartered April 20th, 
181 5. Its capital was increased to 
$60,000 in 1816, and again augmented 
the following year. The proposition for 
assuming the work by the State was ap- 
proved in 1825, and the interest of the 
company purchased for $33,867.18. The 
canal was completed in 1828, at a cost 
of $214,000. 

The Crooked Lake Canal and the Che- 
mung Canal were abandoned by the 
State in 1877 and '78. The former was 
begun in 1830, and finished in 1833. It 
had a descent of 269 feet from Lake 
Keuka to Seneca Lake, by twenty-seven 
locks. The construction of the Chemung 
Canal was commenced in 1829, and it 
was completed in 1833, at a cost of 
$344,000. It connected Seneca Lake 
with the Chemung River at Elmira, and 



122 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

its feeder was navigable from Horse- 
heads to Corning. On both canal and 
feeder were fifty-three locks with an ag- 
gregate rise of 516 feet. By the junc- 
tion Canal, a private enterprise, it was 
connected with the Pennsylvania Canal. 
The Chenango Canal and the Genesee 
Valley Canal were also abandoned in 
1878.^ 

THE LAND-ROUTES. 

The Land-routes at the commence- 
ment of pioneer undertakings fol- 
lowed the trails of the Iroquois, who 
so well had chosen their pathways 
along the waters and over the di- 
vides, that many of the thoroughfares 
of to-day yet follow their winding 
courses. They were invariably of easy 
grade, and in the patches of primeval 
Vv^oods that remain along the lake-shores, 
these ancient ways, worn by the noise- 
less tread of feet encased in moccasins, 
may still be traced. The troops in com- 
mand of General Sullivan were led by 
guides of the Oneida Nation over Indian 
trails, made by the axe-men, of sufficient 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. I23 

width for the passage of the artillery. 

Two public highways to the lakes were 
commenced in 1791, which became im- 
portant routes for immigration. One 
was built from Oxford on the Chenango 
River, to the head of Cayuga Lake, and 
the other from Whitestown on the Mo- 
hawk River, to the foot of Seneca Lake. 
This was known as the Geneva Road, 
and the old army track continued it as a 
thoroughfare to the Genesee River, from 
which point only an Indian trail ex- 
tended to Niagara. The water-courses 
encountered in the opening of these lines 
of travel were crossed at fording places, 
with the exception of ferriage at the foot 
of Cayuga Lake, while over the marshy 
places stretched the log track-ways 
known as corduroy roads. 

The Cayuga Bridge, the most exten- 
sive work connected with the land- 
routes, was considered one of the great- 
est public improvements in the State, 
and for a time regarded as the dividing 
line between the East and the West. The 
company for its construction was incor- 
porated in 1797, and consisted of John 



124 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

Harris, Thomas Morris, Wilhelmus 
Mynderse, Charles WilHamson and 
Joseph Annin. The structure spanned 
the foot of Cayuga Lake, and was one 
mile and eight rods long, twenty-two 
feet wide and the same number of feet 
between trestles. It was finished Septem- 
ber 4th, 1800, having required eighteen 
months for completion at a cost of 
$150,000. The bridge fell in 1808, was 
rebuilt in 1813, and abandoned in 1857. 
Turnpike Roads extended in 1810, 
through Owego, Newtown and Bath to 
the Genesee River, along the courses 
of the Susquehanna and Chemung; 
through Ithaca, Catharine's Town and 
Bath, toward Lake Erie; over the Ge- 
neva Road to the Genesee, thence to the 
mouth of Buffalo Creek; from Oneida 
Lake, by the site of Rochester to Fort 
Niagara. Highways connected these 
turnpikes from Owego to Ithaca and 
Cayuga; from Newtown to Catharine's 
Town and Geneva; from Bath to Penn 
Yan, Friends' Settlement and Geneva; 
from Bath to Naples, Canandaigua and 
Sodus Bay. Over these thoroughfares, 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 125 

which are yet main routes of travel, lines 
of stages were established to flourish 
until superseded by the railways. 

THE STAGE-LINES. 

The Stage-lines were important factors 
in the afrairs of the central section of the 
State, during the first quarter of the 
present century. Everywhere by lake 
and stream were they established, link- 
ing homes and hamlets with the main 
towns, and extending mail facilities to 
remote settlements. Though at first con- 
fined to the turnpike roads, and like the 
toll-gates distinctive features of those 
highways, stage-coaches soon began to 
thread all thoroughfares connecting the 
larger villages, v/liich as head-quarters 
of their daily operations, became centers 
of marked business activities; the wind- 
ing of the drivers' horns announcing the 
arrivals on the scene, as do the whistles 
of the locomotives of to-day. 

The first location of stage-lines by law 
in the Lake Country was on March 31st, 
1804, when the legislature granted to 
Levi Stephens and Jason Parker the sole 



126 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

right of running' stages from Utica to 
Canandaigua, for the term of seven 
years. Trips were required to be made 
twice each week from May to October; 
then the travel demanded three every 
week, and finally daily runs. April 6th, 
1807, John Metcalf was given similar 
privileges for the same length of time, 
between Canandaigua and Buffalo. 
Stages however, were running from Can- 
andaigua and Geneva to Albany as early 
as 1797, when a weekly post was estab- 
lished; mails having been extended from 
Canajoharie to Utica in 1793, the in- 
habitants on the route providing for the 
expense. 

The villages south of the lakes as well 
as those to the northward became great 
stage-line centers, each vying with the 
others in the efiforts to reach outside 
points by this mode of conveyance. The 
stage-coaches on the main roads were 
gaily caparisoned but ponderous afifairs 
weighing upwards of a ton, each drawn 
by four horses sure-footed and strong. 
The teams were changed at frequent in- 
tervals, and kept in fine condition by 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. \2J 

especial care. A dozen passengers with 
light baggage were carried even over the 
rough roadways of the hill-courses. The 
arrivals and departures were enlivening 
events of a place, occurring at stated 
hours with much bustle and exhilara- 
tion as accompaniments, for true time 
was a requisite to the good repute of the 
route. 

The inns of olden days were located at 
such short distances apart, that travelers 
could find entertainment at almost any 
point where night overtook them. Many 
of the settlers thus denominated their 
log-houses, and those who did not ob- 
served the custom of leaving the latch- 
string out to wayfarers who were in need 
of their hospitality. The taverns suc- 
ceeded the inns, but differed from them 
in being of more substantial and commo- 
dious structure, and many are yet in use 
either as dwellings or public houses. The 
bar was a main equipment, and while 
passengers were unrestrained by law in 
their thirsty proclivities, an act was 
passed in April, 1817, prohibiting stage 
companies from employing drivers who 
were addicted to drunkenness. 



128 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

THE RAILWAYS. 

The Railways were projected along 
the water-courses of Central New York 
at an early date. The Mohawk and Hud- 
son, the first line to be constructed in the 
State, was chartered in 1826, and opened 
to traffic in 1831. An act to incorporate 
the Ithaca and Owego Railroad Com- 
pany was passed in January, 1828, and 
the road was opened in April, 1834. 
These initial railways were closely con- 
nected with the fortunes of the Lake 
Country; the former having become the 
first link in the chain of the New York 
Central fines, and the latter ultimately 
becoming part of the Lackawanna sys- 
tem. 

Two lines of railway traversed New 
York State from east to west, at the close 
of 185 1, one passing south and the other 
north of the lakes, and known respec- 
tively as the ''Erie" and the "Central" 
roads. The New York and Erie Rail- 
road Company was formed in July, 1833, 
but reorganized in 1835. The act author- 
izing the road was passed in April, 1832, 
and the preliminary survey of the route 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 12g 

was made the same year by DeWitt Clin- 
ton, Jr., the final survey by Benjamin 
Wright, occurring in 1834. The Hne was 
opened from Piermont to Goshen in Sep- 
tember, 1841; to Binghamton in Decem- 
ber, 1848; to Elmira in October, 1849, 
and to Dunkirk in May, 1851. 

The New York Central and Hudson 
River Railroad Company was formed 
November ist, 1869, by the combina- 
tion of the two lines of railway men- 
tioned in title. The "Central" Company 
was organized under an act of April, 
1853, authorizing the consolidation of 
the railroads between Albany and Buf- 
falo. These numbered ten, ranging in 
date of construction from 1 831, up to 
1853, when the direct line from Syracuse 
to Rochester was completed. The rail- 
road from Syracuse to Auburn was fin- 
ished in 1836; Auburn to Rochester in 
1840, and Rochester to Bufifalo- in 1852. 
The Hudson River Railroad was char- 
tered in May, 1846, and opened its entire 
length in October, 1851. 

The lines of railroad operated by the 
Northern Central Railway Company, 



130 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

were constructed through the Lake 
Country in 185 1. The Fall Brook route, 
which went into operation in 1877, is the 
outgrowth of the mining interests of the 
Fall Brook Coal Corrtpany, organized in 
1859, The Delaware, Lackawanna and 
Western Railroad Company, the lessee 
of many routes of railway in Central New 
York, completed its double-track line to 
Buffalo in 1882. The Lehigh Valley 
Railway Company is the result of the 
consolidation of several railroad organ- 
izations in June, 1890, when its double- 
track road was built. Other lines of the 
lakes are not of independent manage- 
ment. 

THE PRESS. 

The Press of Central New York was 
early established, but the subject of 
newspaper endeavor throughout its ex- 
tent, if properly presented would require 
a volume in itself, and only the pioneer 
publications may be mentioned in these 
sketches. In every center of population 
about the lakes to-day, are well supported 
and ably conducted journals, which in 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. I3I 

their columns advocate the interests of 
community and make faithful record of 
the locality, and while far in advance of 
the standard of excellence of their ante- 
cedents in the field, no less credit is due 
the periodicals of the olden days. 

Previous to 1800 newspapers were 
published in Steuben, Ontario and Ca- 
yuga counties, but in Tioga, the fourth 
county of the lakes at that time, one was 
not issued till that year, when The Amer- 
ican Constellation was started at Union 
Village. The Bath Gazette and Genesee 
Advertiser, the first paper of Western 
New York, was estabUshed in 1796 at 
Bath, by William Kersey and James 
Eddie. The Ontario Gazette and Gen- 
esee Advertiser was commenced at Ge- 
neva, by Lucius Carey in 1797, but two 
years later removed to Canandaigua. 
The Levana Gazette was issued by R. 
Delano in 1798, and two other papers 
of Cayuga county appeared in 1799; the 
Western Luminary and the Aurora 
Gazette. 

The towns having more than one 
newspaper in addition to those enumer- 



132 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

ated, founded during the first quarter of 
the century were as follows: Auburn — 
Cayuga Patriot, 1814; Advocate of the 
People, 1 8 16; Cayuga Republican, 18 19. 
Geneva — Impartial American, 1800; Ex- 
positor, 1806; Palladium, 1816. Water- 
loo — Seneca Farmer, 1822; Republican, 
1822; Observer, 1824. Elmira — Tele- 
graph, 1816; Investigator, 1820; Repub- 
lican, 1820. Binghamton — Broome Co. 
Patriot, 1812; Republican Herald, 1818; 
Republican, 1822. Canandaigua — On- 
tario Freeman, 1803; Republican, 1824. 
Bath — Steuben Patriot, 1815; Farmers' 
Gazette, 18 16. Ithaca — Seneca Republi- 
can, 1815; Republican Chronicle, 1820. 
Penn Yan— Herald, 1818; Yates Co. 
Republican, 1824. Lyons — Republican, 
1821, issued six months; Advertiser, 
1822. 

Other initial publications of the lakes 
were: The American Farmer, Owego, 
1 810; The Cayuga Tocsin, Union 
Springs, 181 2; The Seneca Patriot, Ovid, 
1 81 5; Genesee Farmer, Moscow, 181 7; 
Palmyra Register, 181 7; Livingston 
Journal, Geneseo, 1822; The Lake Light, 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 1 33 

Trumansburg-, 1827; The Tioga Patriot, 
Havana, 1828; Seneca Falls Journal, 
1829; Newark Republican, 1829; Clyde 
Standard, 1830; Vienna Republican, 
Phelps, 1831; Naples Free Press, 1832; 
The Corning and Blossburg Advocate, 
Corning, 1840; The Chemung Demo- 
crat, Jefferson now Watkins, county-seat 
of Schuyler, 1842. 

THE SLOOPS. 

The Sloops and schooners of the olden 
days no longer plough the waters of 
Central New York. The lakes which 
bore hundreds of sailing craft engaged 
in the commercial transactions of the 
pioneers, now save for pleasure purposes 
bear not one upon their bosoms. In that 
early time nearly every owner of a point 
was also the proprietor of a sail-boat, in 
which was taken marketward the prod- 
ucts of the field and forest, and off more 
than one cove of the shore molder yet 
the skeletons of settlers, who were swept 
from the deck to death by the swinging 
boom of a sail. 



134 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

The Sloop of the Seneca launched at 
Geneva in 1796, amid a great public 
demonstration, was the pioneer packet- 
boat of the lakes. The craft was of forty- 
tons burden, and made trips to Cath- 
arine's Town, later known as Havana 
and now called Montour Falls. From 
the head of the lake this landing was 
reached by a sail up the curving course 
of the Inlet through Catharine Marsh, 
and the distance between Geneva and 
Catharine's Town being some forty 
miles, gave rise to the old-time saying 
that Seneca Lake was of that length. The 
surveyors vvith Sullivan's troops recorded 
the measurement of the route along the 
east shore of the lake, as thirty-six miles. 

A schooner known as the "Lyre of 
Tioga" and hailing from Catharine's 
Town, was the central figure in a mem- 
orable event in the annals of Seneca. In 
1825 by legislative enactment, the Inlet 
in its portion through Catharine Marsh 
was declared to be a public highway. 
Through interests at the head of the lake 
however, a draw-bridge was constructed 
over the stream, which was deemed of 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 1 35 

too narroAv build for the purposes of 
navigation, by the people of Catharine's 
Town. Accordingly they placed a can- 
non loaded with broken andirons, on the 
schooner's prow, and sailing down the 
Inlet waters tore the bridge to pieces by 
its discharge. 

A New York paper of date of Novem- 
ber 17th, 1823, under the heading "In- 
land Navigation,'' thus mentioned a 
noted Seneca Lake schooner: "Arrived 
yesterday from the town of Hector, 
Tompkins county, the schooner 'Mary 
and Hannah' of Factory Falls, Captain 
Jackson commanding. This is the first 
vessel which has reached the port of 
New York through the western canal. 
She brings a cargo consisting of 800 
bushels of wheat, three tons of butter 
and four barrels of beans, all of excel- 
lent quality." Factory Falls was the des- 
ignation of the site of old-time industry, 
now known as Hector Falls and dis- 
tinguished only for its picturesque cas- 
cade. 



136 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

THE FRUITS. 

The Fruits of fall ripen nowhere in 
greater perfection than throughout the 
Lake Country. Orchards there bear 
with the greatest abundance, and vine- 
yards yield products of the finest flavor. 
Grapes have been cultivated for upwards 
of half a century, the first vines being 
planted during the '40's, and the shores 
of one lake having but little precedence 
over the others. The slopes of Lakes 
Keuka, Canandaigua and Seneca seem 
to be peculiarly adapted to the growth 
of vineyard products, while not as great 
success has been attained along Cayuga 
Lake or the bodies of water to the east- 
ward. 

The first grapes at the head of Lake 
Keuka were planted by Rev. WilHam 
Bostwick, who did not raise them to sell 
however, and the first shipments were 
from a vineyard grown from cuttings 
from his vines, by William Hastings in 
1847. It was the same year, 1847, ^^^^^ 
a Mr. McKay set out two acres of grapes 
on Canandaigua Lake. The first vine- 
vard located on Seneca Lake, as near as 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 1 37 

can be ascertained, was on lands belong- 
ing to Isaac Hildreth, at Big Stream in 
1845. From these beginnings the in- 
dustry has assumed vast proportions, 
much of the acreage being on soil stony 
and steep and once considered of little 
value for agricultural purposes. 

The fruits of the lakes are not 
wholly of modern culture, for the Iro- 
quois had extensive orchards of apples, 
peaches and plums, which were ruth- 
lessly laid low by troops of the Military 
Expedition. The wide-spread destruc- 
tion attendant on that event, may be in- 
ferred from the statement of one journal, 
that on the east side of Cayuga Lake 
alone, no less than 1,500 peach, besides 
apple and other fruit trees were felled to 
the ground. This was upwards of a cen- 
tury ago, and a century previous to that 
march of havoc, in 1665, a chronicler had 
declared the region of the lakes of Cen- 
tral New York, "Capable of bearing all 
the fruits of Provence and Touraine." 

The settlers obtained fruit from Indian 
apple-trees that had been overlooked by 
the troops or from sprouts of the orig- 



138 THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

inal stumps, until the orchards planted 
by themselves came into bearing. These 
clumps of trees may be seen on many of 
the homesteads of the lakes, generally 
occupying a gravelly knoll, with a pile 
of stones at the side, marking the 
chimney-site of the log-cabin that once 
stood upon the spot. Natural fruit was 
the product of these orchards, and it was 
worth but little save to manufacture into 
cider. This was done by mashing the 
apples between two upright corrugated 
timbers operated by a sweep, and known 
in early days as "nut mills." 

THE TOPICS. 

The Topics of the foregoing pages are 
neither treated at length nor in attempt 
at exhaustive consideration. Each sub- 
ject could be amplified, but the intent of 
the work is rather of a cyclopedic char- 
acter than an extended narration of the 
past. In gathering the facts presented, 
gazetteers, session laws, local histories, 
newspaper files and old residents' recol- 
lections have been consulted. There are 
many themes of interest in the Lake 



THE LAKE COUNTRY. 1 39 

Country not touched upon at all, be- 
cause their initial events were of later 
date than the pioneer period. Notably 
is this true of the Glens, which have be- 
come world-wide in fame as tourist- 
resorts. Their openings to the public 
have been of comparatively recent date, 
though along their banks in olden days, 
o'er ways that may still be threaded by 
those versed in wood-lore, in Indian file 
through countless years there trailed a 
race, whose deeds about the lakes have 
become in greater part, ''But a memory 
and a recollection." 



The Land of Gold. 




-COOK I NUT 



THE SKETCHES. 



Alaska as the place of sojourn during 
the months of May and June, 1898, gave 
opportunity for the observations that 
are embodied in the following sketches 
of the Land of Gold. In that far-away 
realm life-lines are plain and primitive, 
and from the civilization of the crown- 
ing years of the century the transition 
was to the crude conditions of pioneer 
days. The trip was made after a week 
of leisure in New York and a month of 
sight-seeing about Seattle; both busy 
marts of commerce, whose ships sail out 
over the seas to meet where the Orient 
becomes the Occident. Imbued with the 
spirit of settlement scenes by life in Cen- 
tral New York, existence in Alaskan 
wilds was of interest to The Writer and 
his partner, E. L. Becker, also a native 
of the Lake Country. 



THE LAND OF GOLD. 



SKETCHES OF A SOJOURN ALONG 
ALASKAN SHORES. 



The Land of Gold is one of vast ex- 
tent and immense resources; thoitg-h its 
river currents are of great velocity, its 
mountain heights unconquerable, and its 
frozen wastes nearly interminable. The 
forest wealth of this domain of almost 
immeasurable distances, will prove a 
source of profit to generations yet to be. 
The mineral deposits will not be ex- 
hausted while ages elapse, for should 
the time ever come when the gold 
no longer glints in the miner's pan, then 



144 THE LAND OF GOLD. 

will the ores of lesser worth demand and 
receive attention. The waters of the 
coast-line teem with fish and fowl, whose 
progeny in future will augment the 
world's food supply; while on the grass 
of the foot-hills where now feed the 
moose and sheep, the flocks and herds 
of civilization will find sustenance. The 
soil of the southern shore of Alaska sup- 
ports a wonderful woodland growth, and 
where cleared for cultivation yields 
quick-maturing crops in abundance. The 
mold suitable for plant life is deep and 
fertile, and only awaits the hand of the 
husbandman to bring forth all hardy 
grains and fruits in their season. Alaska 
is an empire in area of physical features, 
and unlimited in its possibiUties of indus- 
trial and commercial development. 

THE SHIP. 

The Ship sailed from Seattle, as fell 
the shades of evening of an April day. 
To the eastward and the westward, the 
Cascades and the Olympics from their 
snowy heights, yet glinted the glories 
of the sunset. Above, the sky was 



THE LAND OF GOLD. I45 

cloudless, and beneath, the surface of the 
Sound was tranquil as a lakelet. For 
four days the sail was up the inland pas- 
sage, behind islands which shut ofif the 
swell of the sea, except at Hecate Strait 
and Dixon Entrance, where open waters 
were encountered. Through wide 
reaches and narrow channels the steam- 
er held its way; wooded heights on 
either hand, and evidence of life of fish 
and fowl everywhere. Indian villages 
with their totem poles and peculiar 
places of burial were passed, and now 
and then a vessel would be met. This 
portion of the trip was as if through a 
new world, and all on board were ex- 
hilarated by the entrancing scenes. One 
quiet day inland, the ship sailed out of 
Sumner Strait, and as night fell was 
rolling in the swells of the Pacific. May 
day found it still in the open ocean, and 
visions of flowery fields mocked the 
memory during the misty hours that 
ensued, before the boat was gliding 
through the tranquil waters of Cook 
Inlet. 

The Inlet is fifty by two hundred 



146 THE LAND OF GOLD. 

miles in extent, with waters that soon 
lose their deep-sea tint through shoal- 
ing, and the vexing of the submerged 
sands by adverse currents. Snow-capped 
mountain chains marked by glaciers and 
volcanic peaks, guard its timbered 
shores. The ship rode at anchor at its 
head waiting for the turn of the tide, 
in the midst of wonderland; bathed by 
the sun in beauties indescribable, as it 
sank into a cloudland sea of gold be- 
hind banks of pearl. To' the east and 
west were snowy mountain ranges, far 
beyond the wooded forelands; to the 
south extended open water with the sky- 
line barely discernible ; to the north rose 
Mt. Sushitna, its summit clothed in eter- 
nal snows, a mile in height above sea- 
level. The northeast tributary of Cook 
Inlet is known as Turnagain Arm, and 
up its narrow course the tide surges with 
great velocity, rising to the height of 
thirty feet. On the flow, the vessel held 
her way at morning, going with the 
turbid flood over quaking shallows and 
treacherous sands, to an anchorage at 
the mouth of a mountain stream, where 



THE LAND OF GOLD. I47 

at the ebb It was beached, precisely as 
the exploring ship of Captain Cook 
made landing along its waters in 1778. 

THE CAMP. 

The Camp was in the shelter of moun- 
tains, rising thousands of feet above the 
waters of the stream that skirted the 
plain on which it stood. The configura- 
tion of its location was such that the 
tints of the dawn long lighted up the 
environing peaks at morning, and this 
distinguishment established its appella- 
tion of "Sunrise." Its low-eaved cabins 
of logs among the stumps and shrubs of 
a hastily completed clearing, were pio- 
neer constructions in every detail save 
the old-time fire-places of stone. The 
door-ways broad and inviting, opened 
into hospitable though rudely furnished 
interiors where benches served as chairs 
and boxes frequently as tables, but 
where food was plentiful, plain and nour- 
ishing. On the outskirts of the settle- 
ment were reared the white tents of the 
new-comers — the ^'tenderfeet,'' who per- 
haps were getting an experience of fron- 



148 THE LAND OF GOLD. 

tier life for the first time in their exist- 
ence. From the plain the wooded slopes 
swelled on either side to timber-line, and 
above the snow-fields rose to towering 
heights, while in the foregrotmd the val- 
ley of the stream wound from the tidal 
flats of Turnagain Arm, far into the in- 
terior of the uplands. 

The laws of a camp are few yet efifect- 
ive, and aim to secure the inviolability 
of the person and property. So long as 
a member respects the rights of others, 
he may be a law unto himself on moral 
lines. A hfe for a life is the rule in a 
mining community, and a thief is some- 
times given short shrift before the rope's 
end. More often however, a meeting is 
called, and the offender is escorted by 
a committee to the next camp, who 
herald there his guilt. His course thence- 
forward to the courts of civilization, is a 
succession of custodial trips by commit- 
tees to camps, with his wrong-doing 
ever proclaimed at their termination. 
The law's delay has no exemplification 
among men of the wilderness, who gen- 
erally can be grouped as to their motives 



THE LAND OF GOLD. I49 

for seeking solitude, under three grada- 
tions. There are those who love treasure- 
hunting for itself, and are ever at the 
frontier in the quest for gold. Others 
before financial failure have enjoyed the 
fruits of success, and hope amid new 
scenes to retrieve their fortunes. Lastly 
are the men of mystery, who in lonely 
lives are endeavoring to expiate acts of 
the past, and somewhere through the 
years by the homestead hearths, hearts 
may be waiting and breaking for the 
absent ones. 

THE CLAIM. 

The Claim where the quest is made for 
gold, if on placer ground has an area of 
twenty acres. In the Sunrise district the 
local laws allow the staking of the loca- 
tion in rectangular form, and hence it 
is usual to extend the claim up the 
stream some fifteen hundred feet, with a 
width on either hand from its center of 
about three hundred feet. The ground 
is first prospected by the miner, who 
with pan and pick and pack of camp-kit 
has threaded his way far up some lonely 



150 THE LAND OF GOLD. 

gorge. He seeks an unexplored region, 
for if anyone has preceded him to the 
spot his labors may be in vain. A claim 
however, that has not been developed 
within the tim.e prescribed by mining 
law, reverts to the public and may be 
relocated. After prospecting the placer- 
site, stakes marking its bounds should 
be set within ten days, and before the ex- 
piration of the time of thirty days, a rec- 
ord must be made at the office of the 
district. The assessment work required 
to perfect the title and ensure permanent 
possession, must equal yearly the value 
of one hundred dollars, but the miner 
not only has the remainder of the year 
of location but all of the next one, in 
which to complete his first development. 
The trails lead to the lonely claims, 
following the waterways and extending 
in many instances but as courses marked 
by lines of blazed trees. Yet up these 
pathways the miner packs his belong- 
ings, if he make permanent camp upon 
his claim. With the pan he labors if 
alone, patiently washing the sands and 
carefully hoarding the yellow grains 



THE LAND OF GOLD. I51 

when found. With what is termed a 
rocker much more effective work may 
be done, a larger amount of soil be han- 
dled and greater treasure obtained. If 
sluicing be the method employed, the 
boxes must first be made, and oftentimes 
from lumber manufactured from trees 
upon the site by the slow and laborious 
process of whip-sawing. With these 
crude appliances the treasure-seekers 
toil on, their lives brightened only by 
the glint of gold they are trying to se- 
cure. Away from all home ties with only 
simple food rudely prepared, a bed of 
boughs and a blanket for nightly rest, 
they diligently delve, but they have the 
best of health, the clearest air and purest 
water, the grandest of mountain scenery, 
a summer-tide without a night, their per- 
sonal liberty to its fullest extent; an ex- 
istence free from the cark of worldly af- 
fairs, and almost ideal in its isolation. 

THE GOLD. 

The Gold of Alaska shows its traces 
everywhere throughout the soil, but 
aside from the pay-streak the flakes 



152 THE LAND OF GOLD. 

are very small and widely disseminated. 
Where tides rise high along its glacial 
beaches, where streams foam over 
boulder-beds, where mountains rear 
snowy heights, the golden grains may 
be found. Yet it is tons of earth to 
ounces of gold in the main, and the indi- 
vidual miner may expend years of effort 
without achieving a competence. Cap- 
ital and co-operation are required to 
wrest the treasure from its fastnesses, 
for whether in veins of quartz or placer 
deposits the gold is deep in its affinity to 
bed-rock. Nature nowhere has her 
treasure-house easy of access, in that 
realm of rugged physical characteristics 
and forbidding climatic conditions. Be- 
neath the evergreens generally of giant 
growth, the underbrush thrives thickly, 
and in placer ground this forest wealth 
must be cleared away, if operations 
would extend beyond the bed of the tor- 
rent that roars through its boulder- 
strew^n course down the mountain gorge. 
The moss and mold which hide the sur- 
face of the slopes below timber-line, give 
place to snow and ice above, and ren- 



THE LAND OF GOLD. 1 53 

der prospecting for quartz lodes an un- 
dertaking fraught with difificuhies, such 
as even old miners hesitate to encounter. 
The mining of gold in general is con- 
ducted on too limited a scale to compass 
satisfactory results. The precious metal 
is plentiful, and in time modern 
machinery moved at the behest of finan- 
cial interests will accomplish at a profit 
what is now impossible for efforts of the 
individual. The Treadwell mine with its 
thousand stamps in operation pays divi- 
dends on a valuation of millions, but a 
miner with pestle and mortar on its free- 
milling yet low-grade ore could scarcely 
earn his salt. The quest for gold is as 
old as the annals of mankind, yet the de- 
tails of the process of the separation of 
its grains from the soil through the use of 
water, are the same as when in barbaric 
days its glint first gave suggestion of its 
worth. The crude constructions of the 
placer grounds cannot retain all the 
value of the sands that are washed within 
them, and for ages the waste has con- 
tinued for the wealth of ancient days 
was thus secured. The thirst for treasure 



154 THE LAND OF GOLD. 

has transformed lives, as when once the 
pursuit is engaged in the search for the 
elusive substance seldom ceases, and in 
the endeavor to wrest fortune from the 
reluctant earth it appears as if the great- 
est obstacles had to be surmounted 
where gold most abounds. 

THE SCENE. 

The Scene of these sketches is a land 
where night has no terrors from the 
darkness. No twilight falls at eventide, 
no stars appear in summertime even at 
the midnight hour, and the dawn is only 
known to be at hand through sunlight 
gleam on mountain tops afar. The sea- 
son for placer mining extends from 
early June until late September, and on 
the extensively worked claims men are 
employed on day and night shifts, no 
artificial light whatever being required 
for the latter. In this realm of lofty and 
snow-clad mountain ranges, the grandeur 
of the rising and the setting of the sun 
is indescribable, the light flashing from 
crest to crest of billowing peaks at morn- 
ing, and fading one by one from the 



THE LAND OF GOLD. 1 55 

view at evening. The mountains are 
unique in their magnificence, and rising 
abruptly from sea-level the full impres- 
siveness of their heights is realized. 
About their bases the forest clings; 
spruce and fir and birch clothing the 
slopes to timber-line, a distance of per- 
haps a thousand feet. The grasses ex- 
tend their sward and the mosses creep 
above, and then the eternal snows. The 
reverberations of thunder are never 
heard among the peaks, but ever and 
anon a sullen boom sounds down the 
gorges, the accompaniment of the 
tremor of an earthquake. 

The clime about Cook Inlet is not in- 
hospitable even during the winter 
months. The snow falls deeply but the 
mercury sinks not much below twenty 
degrees, a temperature that is bearable in 
an atmosphere of great dryness and so 
clear that objects scores of miles away 
appear as if just up the valley. During 
rain-fall it is as if a mist prevailed; there 
are no down-pours and electric storms 
are unknown. In early May sleeping in a 
tent, rolled in a blanket upon frozen 



156 THE LAND OF GOLD. 

ground, was attended with no discomfort, 
but in camp or cabin during the hours of 
night at all seasons warm coverings are a 
necessity, and to insure health and phy- 
sical comfort woolen garments should 
be continually worn. The miners as a 
rule are men of fine physique and great 
endurance, a result largely due to their 
natural mode of life in surroundings con- 
ducive to bodily well-being. Miners are 
in one sense machines whose wasted en- 
ergies require replenishment with hearty 
articles of diet, such as whole-wheat 
flour, coffee, bacon and beans, v/hich 
form the staple food of the camp. Their 
arduous work or tramps over the trail 
give requisite exercise ; they breathe airs 
uncontaminated by the effluvia of civili- 
zation, and as a consequence disease and 
depression are virtually unknown. 

THE SHORE. 

The Shore of Alaska was skirted for 
the entire distance from Sunrise to Seat- 
tle, on the return voyage. Stops were 
made at Tyonik, Snug Harbor, Homer, 
Saldovia, Orca, Natchek, Yakutat, Sitka, 



THE LAND OF GOLD. 1 5/ 

Juneau and Ft. Wrangel. Tyonik now 
principally an Indian settlement, was a 
town of importance when the Russians 
were endeavoring to colonize about 
Cook Inlet. In the rocky bluffs at the 
entrance to Snug Harbor the sea-gulls 
nest, and myriads appeared to be in the 
air, on the clefts of the cliffs and about 
the waters. Salmon which agreeably re- 
plenished the ship's larder were taken 
off the sand-spit at Homer, and at Sal- 
dovia the anchor was cast for a three 
days' sojourn before transference to the 
second boat of the trip. The resonance 
of bells from a Greek Church chapel 
floated on the air one evening, the first 
time such sound had been heard in 
months. It was a sweet concordance 
over the quiet waters which were aglow 
with beauty as the sun went down, bring- 
ing into view nearly one hundred miles 
to the northwestward, the volcanoes 
Iliamna and Redoubt with the smoke- 
banners of their internal fires floating 
above their snowy crests. Rounding 
Cape Elizabeth, the course was con- 
tinued along the shores of Kenia Penin- 
sula to Prince William Sound. 



158 THE LAND OF GOLD, 

The mists hung low over the waters, 
which is characteristic of the Sound the 
sailors say. The first stop was at a cop- 
per mine, at the base of a cliff a thousand 
feet in height; at Orca an immense sal- 
mon cannery was a feature of interest, 
and at Natchek the sails were furled 
while a storm raged on the Pacific. 
Through the Gulf of Alaska the sighting 
of whales was a frequent occurrence, and 
before anchoring at Yakutat the course 
for sixty miles was along the Malaspina 
Glacier, which extends its icy waste from 
the coast nearly to Mt. St. Elias, the cor- 
ner-post of Alaska. In the island-studded 
harbor of Sitka the ship tarried for a 
while, and in the finest Greek Church of 
America Sunday services were wit- 
nessed, most of the worshipers being 
Indians. This is a restful spot where life 
to the unambitious should be a calm con- 
tent. Through tide-fretted straits and 
tranquil sounds where eagles hold un- 
molested sway along the shores, the sail 
was made to Juneau, a town extending 
over foot-hills shadowed by rocky 
heights with the Treadwell mine across 



THE LAND OF GOLD. 1 59 

the waters, and all accompaniments of 
civilization save the telegraph. Three 
days of sight-seeing, and the third ship 
of the trip v/as boarded for the inland 
passage to Puget Sound. As if over 
summer seas the vessel sailed, touching 
at Ft. Wrangel and other ports amid 
most charming scenes. 

THE RACE. 

The Race that in time to come may 
dominate Alaskan shores, is the race that 
has held its own though one nation has 
come and gone, and another is now over- 
running the land but remaining no 
longer than to secure its mineral wealth. 
The Indian of Alaska is a patient per- 
sonage. The forms of Russian altars are 
before him, but he still erects his totem 
pole and reveres the rites of his pagan 
ancestry. His cabin though of logs has 
its central-fire on a pebbly bed with a 
smoke-hole in the roof above, precisely 
as did the bark-abodes of his race in 
days of yore. The skins of moose or bear 
cover the ground about the fire-bed, and 
squatted amid her half-clad offspring the 



l60 THE LAND OF GOLD. 

woman of the household performs her 
simple duties. Thus are the domiciles 
of the older inhabitants, but in the hab- 
itations of the younger members of the 
tribe may be found some of the articles 
of civilization. There is no order of loca- 
tion in the construction of the dwelling- 
places. Over knolls and through dales 
they are erected wherever the fancy of 
the owners dictate, but the general ex- 
tension of the village is governed by the 
trend of the shore of land-locked bay or 
mountain stream, whose waters from 
their snowy source are life-giving in their 
purity. 

A canoe race across the waters of the 
strait was an event in the celebration of 
Independence day at Juneau. The grace- 
ful craft were fashioned from the trunks 
of giant firs, and each contained nearly 
a score of Indians, all young men of 
notable athletic appearance. The paddles 
dipped, the blades rising and falling with 
the regularity of the sweep of wings 
when wild-fowl fly, and over the waves 
like black swans on their course glided 
the contesting canoes. It was a demon- 



THE LAND OF GOLD. l6l 

stratioti of vigor, training and determina- 
tion, that evidenced its participants were 
far from the period of race-decadence — 
the opinion generally entertained of the 
aborigines. A "potlatch" was another 
interesting feature that came under ob- 
servation. It was given by an Indian 
as a preliminary to the erection of a 
totem pole, and invitations to members 
of his tribe were made by a harangue 
from a canoe as it was paddled by their 
habitations along the water-front. A 
series of dances and feasts followed until 
all had been entertained, the festivities 
beginning at the evening hour with the 
principal partakers bedecked by paint 
and trappings. Old usages long prevail 
with any people, and time which will ob- 
literate barbaric customs will also sweep 
away the stunting superstitions, that re- 
tard advance of civilization. 



3 1898 



LIBRARY OF 



CONGRESS 




014 107 235 3 



